Esping- Andersens division into three welfare state regimes is widely used in comparative welfare state research. The argument in this paper stresses the importance of considering what kind of actors provides the welfare state services, in order to understand the way different countries handles the challenges of the universal welfare states. In Social democratic welfare states, welfare services have traditionally been provided by the public sector. However, a major current tendency is privatisation of welfare state services, partly as an answer to the need for budgetary cuts but also to the increasing demand from citizens for freedom of choice. This tendency can be argued to change the character of the Social democratic welfare state in substantial ways, which in turn might change the way these kind of welfare states are viewed in a comparative perspective. In this paper the importance of considering the issue of public or private providers of welfare services will be discussed theoretically but also with empirical evidence from recent reforms in Sweden, where private firms now are allowed to compete with the public sector actors in several of the welfare states core services such as health care and elder care. The primary goal of these reforms are to create freedom of choice for the citizens when it comes to welfare state services. At the same time, the question of accountability becomes more complicated since the logic of the market is becoming integrated in the traditionally public sector dominated welfare state areas where bureaucratic values are institutionalised.
