In this paper an analysis of childcare provision in Norway is used as a tool to raise questions about the
place of voluntary providers in a strong welfare state. I argue that any attempt to contain
developments in voluntary provision in the period 1930–1985 within a linear model of change would be
to impose on them a decidedly inappropriate conceptual framework. The paper deals critically with the
notion that developments in childcare provision in a strong welfare state can be captured as an
evolutionary movement from ‘a golden age’ of voluntary provision later subverted by ever-increasing
statutory provision. At the core of this notion is the idea that voluntary provision of services should be
seen as a precondition for the rise of the modern welfare state and possibly as a contemporary
response to the welfare state crisis in the Scandinavian countries. The main thrust of the argument in
this paper is that voluntary service provision cannot, even in a strong Scandinavian welfare state, be
relegated to periods ‘before’ or ‘after’ welfare state expansion. Voluntary service provision in Norway
did not precede, but rather coincide, with the expansion phase of the Norwegian welfare state during
the 1950s and 1960s. In the light of such an interpretation, the idea that the plurality of providers
evident from the mid-1980s onwards is ‘new’ and a direct response to the welfare state crisis must be
qualified.
Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.