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, Germany, France, and the United States. Unlike liberal democracy, a representative democracy may have de facto multiparty, free and fair elections, but may not have a fully developed rule of law and additional individual and minority rights beyond the electoral sphere.