Explain the term 'representative democracy'

Representative democracy is a method through which the public give a mandate to a political body to allow them to make decisions on behalf of the general public. This can be juxtaposed to direct democracy, whereby the policy decisions of the state in question are made directly by the public with no intermediary. Almost all developed western democracies are representative. Through the casting of ballots, the general public is giving their consent for their political ideologies and policy choices to be represented by a certain candidate, who will (or is meant to) represent the views of those who elected them. Representative democracy is functional when the views of the public are mirrored by those who have been mandated to represent them, although this is not always the case, as elected officials can often promote certain views on policies, only to change their stance when their election campaign as an MP is successful. Representative democracies are typified in the parliamentary system of the house of commons in the UK, and the presidential electoral system in the US.