THE CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATION
Representative democracy as we know it today
evolved from two key sources. First, during
the twentieth century, the expansion of the
franchise transformed liberal, constitutional
regimes into mass democracies. Second, when
structured through constitutionalism, electoral
representation enabled a dynamic, if often
fractious, balance between the rule of
elites and the social and political democratization
of society, with political parties displacing
parliaments as the primary loci of
representation.