psephocracyn.
/sᵻˈfɒkrəsi/, /siːˈfɒkrəsi/, /sɛˈfɒkrəsi/, U.S. /siˈfɑkrəsi/ The form of government which results from the election of representatives by ballot; the system of government by elected representatives.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > a or the system of government > government by the people or their delegates > [noun] > representative government
psephocracy1966
1966 New Statesman 15 Apr. 531/1 How then did Britain..become a democracy?.. It never did... What we do have is representative government, or the rule of the ballot-box, or (in one word) psephocracy.
1970 Sci. Jrnl. Feb. 27/1 The present system [of government] is more of a leadership than a referred system—the so called ‘psephocracy’.
1994 Mod. Law Rev. 57 226 The people are not the government; what they do is elect it; and so the pedant would say we have in this country not democracy, but psephocracy.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1966