The emergent development of public portals moulding the state‐individual relationship

Abstract

Purpose

The relationship between the state and the individual is, more than ever before, being mediated by public portals. The requirement specifications for public portals can be said to define the level of expectation among influential actors concerning the roles of the individual in this relationship at a certain point in time. At the same time, they are part of an emergent‐development process. The purpose of this paper is to test this perspective in the empirical context of healthcare.

Design/methodology/approach

This research proposes a framework for analysing the requirement specifications for public portals, making various roles possible, such as being a patient, a citizen, a consumer, and a customer. The framework is tested in a case study of a Swedish national healthcare portal.

Findings

It can be concluded that prominent actors in this particular context of design defined the requirement specification so that the patient and citizen roles were well supported, whereas the roles of the consumer and customer were supported in a less well‐developed manner. The case study also indicated the importance of reusing already existing functionality to attain quick and tangible results. Consequently, the individual is both enhanced and limited by the “travel of ideas” in the form of the reuse of existing functionality.

Originality/value

This paper puts forward the view that the requirement specifications for public portals are part of the emergent formation of an e‐governance relationship.

Citation

Ranerup, A. (2011), "The emergent development of public portals moulding the state‐individual relationship", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 185-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506161111131203