Personal assistance in a Scandinavian context: similarities, differences and developmental traits

Personal assistance (PA) has been characterized as a melting pot consisting of, on the one hand, a social rights discourse with its basis among disabled people, and, on the other hand, a consumer directed market discourse increasingly putting its stamp on welfare policy in the Western world. In the realm of welfare politics, these discourses are, in many ways, opposites, but have found common ground in the demand for a more individual and consumer friendly provision of services. Within a shared welfare state model, the application of PA has developed divergently in the Scandinavian countries and relates to the two discourses in different ways. In this article, PA in Denmark, Norway and Sweden is presented and similarities and differences are discussed and analysed. Questions raised include: How can the differences between the countries be understood? What dilemmas within welfare policy do they illustrate? How do the different discourses put their marks on the different PA-models in the Scandinavian countries? How do the PA programmes seem to develop further and what kind of PA will the Scandinavian countries end up with in the future?