A matter of perspective: Conceptualizing the role of citizens in E-government based on value positions

Citizens are oftentimes the central unit of analysis in e-government research and treated as one of the stake-holders receiving the most benefits from public sector digitalization. Still, they are mostly described in general terms, and it remains unclear what roles they can assume in relation to e-government. Different understandings of the citizens' role in e-government may impact research, because they entail different axioms mainly in relation to the technological frame for e-government but also for the citizens' relationship to public sector organizations in general. The aim of this article is to investigate and conceptualize the citizens' role in e-government based on public value positions. We depart from Rose et al.'s (2015) framework of value positions for managing e-gov-ernment. After reviewing and analyzing extensive research on e-government, we use this framework to contribute a clarification of the citizens' role in each value position. Our analysis shows that the ideal citizen is conceptualized differently across the four value positions; ranging from an external entity that should service themselves using digital self-services, to an engaged agent that should be actively involved in policy making and service delivery. In addition to this new perspective on the citizens' role in e-government, we contribute with an extension of the public value positions framework. The extended framework presented in this article makes these differences visible and we discuss consequences of the citizens' role in e-government for other dimensions of the framework.