Representative democracy (also indirect democracy, representative government or psephocracy) is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. These should not be confused with directly democratic libertarian socialist confederations, in which 'representative's (called delegates for the sake of simplicity) are subject to recall, short-terms and only represent a small interest.
History
See Also: Timeline of Representative Democracy
The development of representative democracy has been a long and unstable process, and that have been constant waves of representative governments forming as well as backslides into more authoritarian governments.
Criticism
Authoritarian Criticisms
Sociologist Robert Michels argued that all democratic institutions suffer from an Iron Law of Oligarchy, which states that power tends to be concentrated over time in ANY democratic organisations, effectively dooming democracy to always be a failure.