The minimalist conception of democracy associated with Joseph Schumpeter, in which democracy is a method for choosing leaders through competition for the people's vote rather than a means of realising a popular will.
In more detail
Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) rejected the 'classical doctrine' of a common good identified by citizens and defined the democratic method as competition among leaders for votes, with citizens' role confined largely to choosing and removing governments. The view underlies procedural definitions of democracy used in political science. Participatory and deliberative democrats criticise it for abandoning self-government and for treating citizens' limited competence as fixed.