Political participation beyond elections is a recurrent subject in the analysis of politics at the domestic level. Since the beginning of the 1990s, official discourses and academic research increasingly underlines the capacities of NGO participation in decision-making to reduce the major democratic deficits that have grown during the recent decades in the governance of global relations. The emergence of this participatory discourse has fundamental consequences for the strategies, the power and the organisational structures of non-state actors. We argue that this discourse has led to increasing inclusion of non-state actor participation in decision making processes. What follows is a process of professionalization and adaptation of nongovernmental non-profit actors. The aim of our contribution is to develop a conceptual framework which prepares the ground for the empirical analysis of this particular topic.