Editing Representative democracy (section)

==History==
{{See also|Democratization}}
The [[Roman Republic]] was the first known state 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 would inspire many political thinkers over the centuries,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Livy |last2=De Sélincourt |first2=A. |last3=Ogilvie |first3=R. M. |last4=Oakley |first4=S. P. |title = The early history of Rome: books I-V of The history of Rome from its foundations |publisher = Penguin Classics |year = 2002 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHh7heON3sQC |isbn = 0-14-044809-8 |page = 34 }}</ref> and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek model, 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.<ref>Watson, 2005, p. 271</ref> Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives; as opposed to direct democracy, a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly.<ref>{{cite book|author=Budge, Ian|chapter=Direct democracy|editor1=Clarke, Paul A.B. |editor2=Foweraker, Joe|title=Encyclopedia of Political Thought|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2001|isbn=978-0-415-19396-2|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=srzDCqnZkfUC&pg=PA224}}</ref> A [[Europe]]an [[medieval]] tradition of selecting representatives from the various [[estates of the realm|estates]] ([[social class|classes]], but not as we know them today) to advise/control [[monarch]]s led to relatively wide familiarity with representative systems inspired by Roman systems.

In Britain, [[Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester|Simon de Montfort]] is remembered as one of the fathers of representative government for holding two famous parliaments.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Jobson|first1=Adrian|title=The First English Revolution: Simon de Montfort, Henry III and the Barons' War|date=2012|publisher=Bloomsbury|isbn=978-1-84725-226-5|pages=173–4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9gHWamp-TLoC}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Simon de Montfort: The turning point for democracy that gets overlooked|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30849472|access-date=19 January 2015|publisher=BBC| postscript = none|date=19 January 2015}}; {{cite news|title=The January Parliament and how it defined Britain|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11355822/The-January-Parliament-and-how-it-defined-Britain.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11355822/The-January-Parliament-and-how-it-defined-Britain.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=28 January 2015|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=20 January 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> [[Oxford Parliament (1258)|The first]], in 1258, stripped the [[British king|king]] of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265, included [[Simon de Montfort's Parliament|ordinary citizens from the towns]].<ref name=dnb>{{cite DNB |last=Norgate |first=Kate |author-link=Kate Norgate |wstitle=Montfort, Simon of (1208?-1265)|volume=38 }}</ref> Later, in the 17th century, the [[Parliament of England]] implemented some of the ideas and systems of [[Liberal democracy#Origins|liberal democracy]], culminating in the [[Glorious Revolution]] and passage of the [[Bill of Rights 1689]].<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Kopstein|editor1-first=Jeffrey|editor2-last=Lichbach|editor2-first=Mark|editor3-last=Hanson|editor3-first=Stephen E.|title=Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order|date=2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1139991384|pages=37–9|edition=4, revised|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L2jwAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA38|quote=Britain pioneered the system of liberal democracy that has now spread in one form or another to most of the world's countries}}</ref><ref name=refIIP>{{cite web|title=Constitutionalism: America & Beyond|url=http://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/zhtw/DOCS/Demopaper/dmpaper2.html|publisher=Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), U.S. Department of State|access-date=30 October 2014|quote=The earliest, and perhaps greatest, victory for liberalism was achieved in England. The rising commercial class that had supported the Tudor monarchy in the 16th century led the revolutionary battle in the 17th and succeeded in establishing the supremacy of Parliament and, eventually, of the House of Commons. What emerged as the distinctive feature of modern constitutionalism was not the insistence on the idea that the king is subject to the law (although this concept is an essential attribute of all constitutionalism). This notion was already well established in the Middle Ages. What was distinctive was the establishment of effective means of political control whereby the rule of law might be enforced. Modern constitutionalism was born with the political requirement that representative government depended upon the consent of citizen subjects... However, as can be seen through provisions in the 1689 Bill of Rights, the English Revolution was fought not just to protect the rights of property (in the narrow sense) but to establish those liberties which liberals believed essential to human dignity and moral worth. The "rights of man" enumerated in the English Bill of Rights gradually were proclaimed beyond the boundaries of England, notably in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141024130317/http://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/zhtw/DOCS/Demopaper/dmpaper2.html|archive-date=24 October 2014|df=dmy-all}}</ref>  Widening of the voting franchise took place through a series of [[Reform Acts]] in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The [[American Revolution]] led to the creation of a new [[Constitution of the United States]] in 1787, with a national legislature based partly on direct elections of representatives every two years, and thus responsible to the electorate for continuance in office. [[United States Senate|Senators]] were not directly elected by the people until the adoption of the [[Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Seventeenth Amendment]] in 1913.  Women, men who owned no property, and Black people, and others not originally given voting rights, in most states eventually [[Voting rights in the United States#Background|gained the vote through changes in state and federal law]] in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Until it was repealed by the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] following the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the [[Three-Fifths Compromise]] gave a disproportionate representation of [[Slave states and free states|slave states]] in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] relative to the voters in free states.<ref>"We Hold These Truths to be Self-evident;" An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Roots of Racism & slavery in America Kenneth N. Addison; Introduction P. xxii</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Expansion of Rights and Liberties|date=30 October 2015|publisher=National Archives|url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html|access-date=December 27, 2015}}</ref>

In 1789, [[Revolutionary France]] adopted the [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen]] and, although short-lived, the [[National Convention]] was elected by all males in 1792.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/rev892.html |title=The French Revolution II |publisher=Mars.wnec.edu |access-date=2010-08-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080827213104/http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/rev892.html |archive-date=27 August 2008 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> [[Universal male suffrage]] was re-established in France in the wake of the [[French Revolution of 1848]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/suffrage_universel/suffrage-1848.asp|title=1848 " Désormais le bulletin de vote doit remplacer le fusil "|author=French National Assembly|access-date=2009-09-26|language=fr}}</ref>

Representative democracy came into general favour particularly in post-[[industrial revolution]] [[nation state]]s where large numbers of [[citizenship|citizens]] evinced interest in [[politics]], but where technology and population figures remained unsuited to direct democracy.{{Citation needed|date=August 2013}} Many historians credit the [[Reform Act 1832]] with launching modern representative democracy in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite book|author1=A. Ricardo López|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-wPB0I-5yEC&pg=PA58|title=The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History|author2=Barbara Weinstein|publisher=Duke UP|year=2012|isbn=978-0822351290|page=58}}</ref><ref>Eric J.  Evans, ''The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783–1870'' (2nd ed. 1996) p. 229</ref>
[[File:USHouseStructure2012-2022 SeatsByState.png|thumb|The U.S. House of Representatives, one example of representative democracy]]
Globally, a majority of governments in the world are representative democracies, including constitutional monarchies and republics with strong representative branches.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Roser|first=Max|date=2013-03-15|title=Democracy|url=https://ourworldindata.org/democracy|journal=Our World in Data}}</ref>