In spite of the prevalent perception that large private businesses are powerful political actors there is remarkably little systematic knowledge about business in politics. By way of a survey to the 500 largest Danish companies this book analyzes a number of aspects related to the issue of big business as political actors.

A large number of public rules and regulations circumscribe business behavior. Thus, expectedly, and as a matter of routine, many large companies have regular contacts with public authorities. However, far from all contacts concern routine matters. Large companies are also active in political and administrative decision making processes.

In particular the very large companies with annual revenues of more than 5 billion Danish kroner are in a league of their own. They use a broad range of strategies to influence political and administrative authorities: They have many direct contacts with public authorities; they use their trade associations very frequently; they coordinate their contacts with other companies more often; they frequently participate in the public debate and contact the media; and it is predominantly the very large companies that use professional lobbyists. Still, the use of professional lobbyist is remarkably small in Denmark.