Representative democracy

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[[Representative democracy]] is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the people's representatives. The representatives supposedly act in the people's interest, but not as their proxy representative—i.e., not necessarily always according to wishes, but with enough authority to exercise initiative in the face of changing circumstances. It is often contrasted with direct democracy, where representatives are absent or only proxy representatives.

The representatives are [[chosen by voters in free, secret-ballot, multi-party]] elections. While existing representative democracies hold such elections to choose representatives, in theory other methods, such as sortition, could be used instead.

The power of representatives in a representative democracy is usually curtailed by a constitution (as in a constitutional republic or a constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance representative power:

An independent judiciary, which may have the power to declare legislative acts unconstitutional (e.g. the Supreme Court)
It may also provide for some deliberative democracy (e.g., Royal Commissions) or
direct democracy (e.g., initiative, referendum, recall elections) 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.