E-Government meets E-Justice: Revealing Conceptual Understandings Through a Systematic Literature Review

This paper explores the prevailing understandings of the terms e-government and e-justice within academia and investigates whether uniform definitions can be derived from current research. Through a systematic literature analysis following PRISMA guidelines, relevant publications were identified and evaluated. The findings reveal that while German literature frequently references one specific definition for e-government (von Lucke & Reinermann, 2000), there is not one particular source in the English-language literature. There is also no unified reference for the term e-justice in either language. Three competing framings regarding the assumed relationship between the two expressions were identified: e-justice as a subordinate pillar of e-government, e-justice and e-government as independent siblings under e-democracy, and the two as overlapping but independent domains. The study also examines how the conceptualizations of these terms influence research and practical implementations of digitization in the public sector. Overall, while there are similarities in the definitions, no unified understanding emerges from the 32 publications examined here.