Representative democracy
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Representative democracy is a form of indirect democracy and can be either bottom-up or top-down democracy. Bottom-up representative democracy nominates and elects representatives through small grouping of people, while top-down representative democracy nominates and elects representatives by larger grouping of people. Both types of representative democracy are founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the people's representatives. It is a theory of civics in which voters choose (in free, secret, multi-party elections) representatives to act in their interests or as their proxies. In top-down representative democracy the representatives rule 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 direct 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 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.