Representative democracy

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  Governments that do not claim to be democratic

Representative democracy (also indirect democracy) is a variety of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy.[1] All modern Western-style democracies are types of representative democracies; for example, the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and Germany is a parliamentary republic.

It is an element of both the parliamentary system or presidential system of government and is typically used in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons (UK) or Bundestag (Germany), and may be curtailed by constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber. It has been described by some political theorists as Polyarchy.[citation needed] In it the power is in the hands of the elected representatives who are elected by the people in elections. Critics argue that the true function of representative democracy is to legitimize oligarchical rule.

Powers of representatives[edit]

Representatives are elected by the public, as in national elections for the national legislature.[citation needed] Elected representatives may hold the power to select other representatives, presidents, or other officers of government or of the legislature, as the Prime Minister in the latter case. (indirect representation).




The Roman Republic was the first government in the western world to have a representative government, despite taking the form of a direct government in the Roman assemblies. The Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries,[3] and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.[4] Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives as opposed to a direct democracy, a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly.[5] A European medieval tradition of selecting representatives from the various estates (classes, but not as we know them today) to advise/control monarchs led to relatively wide familiarity with representative systems inspired by Roman systems.


Globally, a majority of the world's people live in representative democracies including constitutional monarchies with strong representative branches.

Research on Representation Per Se[edit]

Separate but related, and very large, bodies of research in political philosophy and social science investigate how and how well elected representatives, such as legislators, represent the interests or preferences of one another constituency. Some of the particular lines of such research and the findings therein are described under the topic Representation (politics).


In his book Political Parties, written in 1911, Robert Michels argues that most representative systems deteriorate towards an oligarchy or particracy. This is known as the "Iron Law of Oligarchy."[6] Representative democracies which are stable have been analysed by Adolf Gasser and compared to the unstable representative democracies in his book "Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas" which was published in 1943 (first edition in German) and a second edition in 1947 (in German).[7] Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a representative democracy in order to remain stable, unaffected by the "Iron Law of Oligarchy":

  • There is no hierarchical bureaucracy.

A drawback to this type of government is that elected officials are not required to fulfill promises made before their election.[citation needed]


See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Victorian Electronic Democracy, Final Report - Glossary". 28 July 2005. Archived from the original on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 14 December 2007. 
  3. ^ Livy, 2002, p. 34
  4. ^ Watson, 2005, p. 271
  7. ^ Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas. Grundlinien einer ethischen Geschichtsauffassung. Verlag Bücherfreunde, Basel 1947. In 1983 republished under: "Gemeindefreiheit - kommunale Selbstverwaltung" (Adolf Gasser/Franz-Ludwig Knemeyer), in de reeks "Studien zur Soziologie", Nymphenburger, München, 1983.
  8. ^ "Selection by lot in the Athenian Democracy". Retrieved 1 October 2013. 
  9. ^ "1,5". Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Josiah Ober , Robert Wallace , Paul Cartledge , Cynthia Farrar (1st ed.). October 15, 2008. pp. 17,105. ISBN 978-0520258099. 

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