The Role of Domain-Skills in Bureaucratic Service Encounters

Abstract

Citizens are increasingly expected and even required to go online for much of their interaction with government, making the skills citizens bring to these encounters particularly important. Several skillsets for the use of online resources have been proposed in the general e-government literature. However, few empirical studies explore the experiences and strategies of citizens themselves related to the role of skills in their interaction with government. Consequently, there is a gap in the knowledge regarding which skills are specifically relevant when dealing with government online. To explore this gap, this paper presents a qualitative analysis of interviews with citizens in Danish municipal service centres. The analysis takes its departure in a review of the literature that addresses aspects of skills relevant for the (digital) citizen-government encounter. The paper contributes to the e-government literature, by introducing the concept of domain-skills as a central skill set for citizen self-service. Domain-skills constitute a scaffolding citizens can build on, when looking for and interpreting information and contextualizing it to their situation, making it easier for them to act on their own, with confidence.