  The mechanism behind Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) and the nature of
dark matter (DM) are currently among the most important issues in high energy
physics. Since a natural dark matter candidate is a weakly interacting massive
particle or WIMP, with mass around the electroweak scale, it is clearly of
interest to investigate the possibility that DM and EWSB are closely related.
In the context of a very simple extension of the Standard Model, the Inert
Doublet Model, we show that dark matter could play a crucial role in the
breaking of the electroweak symmetry. In this model, dark matter is the
lightest component of an inert scalar doublet. The coupling of the latter with
the Standard Model Higgs doublet breaks the electroweak symmetry at one-loop,
"a la Coleman-Weinberg". The abundance of dark matter, the breaking of the
electroweak symmetry and the constraints from electroweak precision
measurements can all be accommodated by imposing an (exact or approximate)
custodial symmetry.
