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Liberal democracy is a form of representative democracy where majority rule (also called 'Majoritarianism'] is moderated by constitutional rights in order to protect the individual liberties and the rights of minorities in society, such as freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of religion, the right to private property and privacy, as well as equality before the law and due process under the rule of law, and many more.

Such constitutional rights (also named liberal rights) are guaranteed through various controled institutions and various statutory laws in order to protect the rights of individuals and minorities from the 'Majoritarianism'.

Some would argue that liberal democracy isn't democratic or liberal at all. They would argue that "liberal democracy" does not respect the majority rule (except when citizents are asked to vote for their representatives). They would argue that, by prohibiting citizents to cast votes for all subjects (and especially for serious subjects like going to war, like constitutional amendents e.t.c), this turns "liberal democracy" the antechamber of oligarchy.

Others would say that only a liberal democracy can guarantee the individual liberties of its citizens and prevent the development into a dictatorship. Unmoderated majority rule could - in this view - lead to an oppression of minorities.

All liberal democracies are representative democracies. Part of these democracies have additional systems of referenda to give the electorale a possibility to overrule decisions of the elected legislature or even to take decisions by plebiscite without giving the leigslature a say in that decision. Switzerland is one of the few liberal democracies with a representative system completed with referenda and plebiscites. More countries have referenda in their political systen. Adding referenda to a political system could help preventing the evolution of a liberal democracy in an olicharchy.

Australia, Canada, the member states of the European Union, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and the United States are all examples of liberal democracy (though of course it is sometimes argued that none is perfect with respect to the above rights).

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