Structuring Dialogue Between the People and Their Representatives

Conversations between citizens and their representatives may take a number of forms. In this paper, we consider one of these --- letters between citizens and representatives --- and explore the application of a well-known model of dialogue types to these. We provide a method to give these types a precise characterization in terms of the initial beliefs and desires of the participants, and then explore one type, persuasion dialogues. This work commences the formal modeling of citizen-representative interactions necessary for a fully electronic democracy