This article analyses the introduction of Norwegian local government social security programs for the elderly, disabled persons, widows and single mothers in the 1920s. The role of local government as an agent and initiator of welfare state development has been for the most part neglected within the welfare stale literature. indeed, thr first social security programs in Norway were introduced by local governments, affecting nearly half of the population. Even if these programs were not very generous compared with the social security programs of our time, many of them were equal to, or even more generous than, the national pension scheme introduced in 1936. This article examines what distinguished the social security municipalities from those that did not implement such programs, and the variation in generosity profiles. The conclusion is that the main determinant regarding the implementation and generosity of the local social security programs is the political strength of the two Norwegian socialist parties at the time - the Social democratic party and the Labour party - both bring too impatient to wait for a national social security plan, and both being willing to mobilise economic resources through taxation and borrowing.
