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Representative democracy
*** Shopping-Tip: Representative democracy
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'''Representative democracy''' is a form of
democracy founded on the exercise of
popular sovereignty by the people's representants. It is a theory of
civics in which voters choose (in free, secret,
Multi-party system multi-party elections) representatives to act in their interests, but ''not'' as their
proxy representative proxies—i.e., not necessarily according to their voters' wishes, but with enough
authority to exercise
initiative in the face of changing circumstances. Another form of representative democracy involves impartial selection of representatives through
sortition.
A representative democracy can involve more powers given to the legislators than under a
constitutional monarchy or
participatory democracy, so almost all
constitutions provide for an independent
judiciary and other measures to balance representative power:
*A representative democracy may provide for
recall election recall of elected representatives that voters become dissatisfied with.
*It may also provide for some
deliberative democracy (e.g.,
Canadian Royal Commission) or
*
direct democracy (e.g.,
referendum) measures. However, these are not always binding and usually require some legislative action - legal power usually remains firmly with representatives.
*Sometimes there is an "upper house" that is not directly elected, such as the
Canadian Senate, which was in turn modelled on the UK
House of Lords.
*
Republican democracy
*
Direct democracy
Category:Democracy
Category:Elections
ar:ديمقراطية تمثيلية
de:Repräsentative Demokratie
et:Esindusdemokraatia
fr:Démocratie représentative
he:דמוקרטיה פרלמנטרית
nl:Representatieve democratie
nn:representativt demokrati
ja:間接民主制
sv:Representativ demokrati
