Despite the growth of the intertwining between politics and the third sector, the scientific debate of the last decades seems to focus increasingly on the economic relevance of the nonprofit actors. Even within such a bias, however, both international and Italian literature have never completely neglected the political dimension, although not always focusing explicitly on it. The article, therefore, aims to systematize the approaches and topics that characterize the literature that have explored it. The analysis will be carried out along four main dimensions: the relation with the state and the regulation of the sector, the level of politicization of the organizations, the socialization function and the «direct» political role covered by the organizations within and outside the institutional arenas.