I think representative democracy specifically does not work to stave off totalitarianism. When the issue under consideration is about increasing the power of politicians over the citizenry, many politicians will switch from voting as representatives of citizens, to voting as politicians. A binding referendum that can only retract proposed laws, like we have/had/will have (sorry, I don't know exactly) in NL, seems like it could largely solve this issue, provided it gets sufficient traction.