Legitimate E-Government -- Public E-Services as a Facilitator of Political Legitimacy

This paper addresses the critical issue of legitimacy in relation to e-government by focusing on public e-services to citizens. The discussion is framed through a tentative model on how to integrate legitimacy in design and development of e-government. In theory legitimacy is built on legality and trust towards and within the state. In practice it is developed through a socio-technical collaborative formation of local cultures based on common values, trust, interpretation of systems and practices. Legitimacy is crucial for democratic governance and is a basic prerequisite for all governments. Legitimacy is most often seen as generated through personal, face-to-face meetings, but e-government substitutes such opportunities for interaction. E-governments is neither clearly place-bound. Legitimacy thus has to be gained and sustained in slightly different ways. This paper brings a political science perspective on legitimacy into the IS discussion on e-government. Legitimacy of e-government has to be further theoretically extended to be useful and applicable for sustainable e-societies in different governmental context. Here a conceptual model on legitimacy of e-government is elaborated on in relation to local socio-technical settings and co-produced processes.