A representative democracy can be defined as a form of government in which the people elect their leaders who are then expected to govern and make laws. This allows specialists to craft laws intelligently. While people still have a say in who makes those laws, they don't have the power to influence them directly. Power is therefore divided. The people retain some of the power while the rest is held by elected representatives. This form of government is held by the United Kingdom, where representatives such as members of Parliament meet in the House of Commons to discuss and pass laws. A representative democracy tends to sit at the center of the political spectrum, thus being defined as a “compromise”. But a compromise between what? A comparison to this is direct democracy. It is a form of democracy in which political power is exercised by citizens who propose and vote on each law directly, without a representative acting on their behalf. The people have the power, but in such democracies the minority is often ignored. The starkest contrast to both of these forms of democracy would be a dictatorship such as communism. This is where one person or a small group of people rules and makes all the decisions without any input from the people or anyone else and it is a totalitarian political system. All laws passed are absolute rules that are not influenced by public opinion. These three systems have slightly different approaches that, when examined, will help evaluate whether representative democracy is a confusing compromise. In a direct democracy, power is returned to the people in an attempt to maximize individual autonomy while maintaining an interest in politics. However, this does not necessarily mean that every... paper medium... implies a dictatorship. Any aspect of confusion in a representative democracy can be mitigated by the motivation of the main political actors to reach a logical conclusion through compromise. Works Cited AD Lindsay, The Essentials of Democracy, 1930E Latham, The Foundations of Group Politics, 1965Anthony M. Birch, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy, 1993Jonathan Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006E. W. Martin, The tyranny of the majority, 1961J.R. Lucas, Democracy and Participation, 1976 AJP Taylor, The German History Course, 2001 https://sites.google.com/site/billfitzgibbonsproject/home http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com http://www.economist . com/node/17849447 http://www.lawteacher.net/administrative-law/essays/liberal-democracies-tyranny-of-the-majority-administrative-law-essay.php