I will here give an 1995 summary and evaluation of the work. Schumpeter depicts democracy as a political method, an institutional arrangement for arriving at decisions. It's a competiton for leadership. Schumpeter even helds the opinion that citizens trying to influence representatives with personal opinions is against the spirit of the democratic method. That is because it is an attempt by citizens to control their representatives and contrasts with the concept of leadership.
Participation is discouraged except for the occasion of elections.
Pateman singles out four more recent theorists that follow Schumpeter in his footsteps. These are Berelson, Dahl, Sartori and Eckstein. She describes their theories one by one. They all emphasize stability a bit more than Schumpeter. The system is both stable and flexible.