Representative democracy is a variety of democracy founded on the principle of elected people representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. For example, three countries which use representative democracy are the United States Of America (a presidential republic), the United Kingdom (a constitutional monarchy) and Poland (a parliamentary republic).
It is an element of both the parliamentary system and presidential system of government and is typically used in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons (UK) or Bundestag (Germany), and is generally curtailed by constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber. It has been described by some political theorists as Polyarchy.
Read more about Representative Democracy: Powers of Representatives, Representative Democracy and Republicanism, History, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the word democracy:
“Even under the most perfect Social Democracy we should, without Communism, still be living like hogs, except that each hog would get his fair share of grub.... Whilst we are hogs, let us at least be well-fed, healthy, reciprocally useful hogs, instead of—well, instead of the sort we are at present.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)