<P> The Roman Republic was the first government 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 inspired many political thinkers over the centuries , and today 's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models 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 . Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives as opposed to a direct democracy , a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly . A European medieval tradition of selecting representatives from the various estates ( classes , but not as we know them today ) to advise / control monarchs led to relatively wide familiarity with representative systems inspired by Roman systems . </P>
<P> The Roman Republic was the first government 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 inspired many political thinkers over the centuries , and today 's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models 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 . Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives as opposed to a direct democracy , a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly . A European medieval tradition of selecting representatives from the various estates ( classes , but not as we know them today ) to advise / control monarchs led to relatively wide familiarity with representative systems inspired by Roman systems . </P>
where did the system of representative government come from
where did the system of representative government come from
The Roman Republic
The Roman Republic