Representative democracy

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Democracy
This series is part of the Politics and the Forms of government series
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Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the people's elected representatives. It is a theory of civics in which voters choose (in free, secret, multi-party elections) representatives to act in their interests, but not as their proxies—i.e., not necessarily according to their voters' wishes, but with enough authority to exercise initiative in the face of changing circumstances.

As a representative democracy involves significant powers given to the legislators, there are usually constitutional or other measures to balance representative power:

• An independent judiciary, which may have the power to declare legislative acts unconstitutional.
• A representative democracy may provide for recall of elected representatives that voters become dissatisfied with.
• It may also provide for some deliberative democracy (e.g., Royal Commissions) 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.
• In some cases, a bicameral legislature may have an "upper house" that is not directly elected, such as the Canadian Senate, which was in turn modelled on the UK House of Lords.

While existing representative democracies hold elections to choose the representatives, in theory other methods, such as sortition, could be used.

Critique

One critique of representative democracy is that it centralizes power into the hands of the wealthy, thereby increasing the likelihood of policies which benefit the wealthy and not the poor. This can be called corruption in and abuse of power by the government. In the United States, the chief means to reduce this risk is the form of government called a constitutional democracy (or more accurately, a republic with constitutionally ordained democratic institutions), wherein a separation of powers is used to constitutionally establish a system of checks and balances. Such checks and balances are a critical element of a Jeffersonian democracy. Other democracies among advanced industrial nations rely on the strength of political participation, particularly through multi-party systems, and do not generally try to institute constitutionally structured checks and balances.

See also

• Republican democracy
• Direct democracy

External links

• [Electoral Reform Society]

 

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