As part of their egovernment plans, many countries aim at digitizing their communication with its citizens and the business sector. The effects of e-government depend on particular policy and design decisions. The aim of this paper is to compare the enactment of particular policies in supposedly similar contexts. The comparative case constitutes digital communication between public sector and citizens in the Scandinavian countries. From a grounded approach, we have described the policy, design and effects elements of the three case settings. Our study indicates that apparently similar solutions in comparable contexts may be enacted in rather different ways and have quite different effects. The three countries operate on a scale of coercion from mandatory (Denmark), over nudging (Norway) to voluntary (Sweden).