Corporations and corporatism: Swedish big business and the Harpsund conferences 1955–1962

Between 1955 and 1962, the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Tage Erlander invited big business leaders to his country estate Harpsund to discuss issues of common concern. Erlander called the conferences ‘consultative democracy’ and the meetings have come to symbolise compromise and cooperation between big business and organised labour during the zenith of Swedish corporatism. This article finds that participating in the talks was a political maximisation strategy for business. Corporatist institutions, such as the Harpsund conferences, were used to communicate business core issues to the government, while at the same time, businesses tried to return the centre-right parties back into power through financial support and public relations campaigns. The article further argues that the cordial relationship between business and labour at the Harpsund conferences fits Katzenstein’s theories on corporatism, including the factors of an export reliant economy, an ideology of social partnership between elites, centralised peak organisations and continuous political bargaining between interest groups, the state, and political parties. Also, the article maintains that the unique good relations were a consequence of a generation of leaders on both sides who gained influence in an era of fast economic growth and mounting international geopolitical tension.