Robert Dahl in the context of "Yale University"

Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or electoral democracy, is a type of democracy where elected delegates represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of representative democracy: for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy), Germany (a federal parliamentary republic), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a federal presidential republic). Unlike liberal democracy, a representative democracy may have de facto multiparty and free and fair elections, but may not have a fully developed rule of law and additional individual and minority rights beyond the electoral sphere.

Representative democracy places power in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people. Political parties often become central to this form of democracy if electoral systems require or encourage voters to vote for political parties or for candidates associated with political parties (as opposed to voting for individual representatives). Some political theorists (including Robert Dahl, Gregory Houston, and Ian Liebenberg) have described representative democracy as polyarchy.

In political science, the term polyarchy (poly "many", arkhe "rule") was used by Robert Dahl to describe a form of government in which power is invested in multiple people. It takes the form of neither a dictatorship nor a democracy. This form of government was first implemented in the United States and France and gradually adopted by other countries. Polyarchy is different from democracy, according to Dahl, because the fundamental democratic principle is "the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals" with unimpaired opportunities. A polyarchy is a form of government that has certain procedures that are necessary conditions for following the democratic principle.

In semblance, the word "polycracy" describes the same form of government, although from a slightly different premise: a polycracy is a society ruled by more than one person, as opposed to a monocracy. The word derives from Greek poly ("many") and kratos ("rule" or "strength").

A free and fair election is defined as an election in which "coercion is comparatively uncommon". This definition was popularized by political scientist Robert Dahl. A free and fair election involves political freedoms and fair processes leading up to the vote, a fair count of eligible voters who cast a ballot, a lack of electoral fraud or voter suppression, and acceptance of election results by all parties. An election may partially meet international standards for free and fair elections, or may meet some standards but not others.