Much research focusing on the welfare state is based on the assumption that welfare regimes are homogenous entities. This idea is supported by studies analysing cash benefits. In the area of welfare services, however, local governments in most countries have some autonomy regarding policy formation as well as the design and implementation of policies. In practice, substantial local differences exist with regard to the provision of welfare services, which in turn challenge our conception of nation-wide homogenous welfare state regimes. This paper examines the factors causing marked differences in local government spending in the provision of care for older people in Denmark. The conclusion is that the wealth of the municipality, local demographics and privatisation can explain about 48 per cent of the differences in local government spending. Political factors such as the ‘colour’ of local government have no explanatory power, while a high percentage of women in municipal councils appears to have a slightly negative effect on spending.

The article discusses ‘activation’ in Denmark and Norway from an ‘active society’ perspective. The argument forwarded is that activation in the two Nordic countries shows continuity over the last 50 years, where Denmark and Norway have shared much of the same policy rationale or logic. At the same time there have been discrepancies in the activation opportunities, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. Such differences should be understood in terms of differences in the level and structure of unemployment in the two countries. All too often, changes in policy programmes and related ‘discourses’ have been evaluated without taking the changing labour-market conditions into account. On occasion this has led to too hasty or imbalanced conclusions. In part this has led to a misrepresentation of the relatively generous welfare benefit regime in Denmark during the 1980s, and in part to exaggeration of the alleged ‘repressive’ or unreasonable nature of the welfare-policy reforms in Denmark in the 1990s.