Conclusion
The purpose of this paper has been to explore some of the implications of single-issue voting. In general terms, single-issue voting has been shown to be a stabilizing influence on majoritarian decision making. In each case examined, stable equilibria exist under single-issue voting. On the other hand, the normative properties of electoral outcomes are less clear cut. Under pure zealotry, electoral equilibria are uniformly Pareto efficient. However, electoral outcomes are not necessarily Pareto optimal in the case of strategic voting by special interest groups. The results suggest that single-issue voting can, by itself, cause electoral outcomes to depart from the center of the distribution of voter ideal points. Special interest groups might, thus, be served in the ordinary course of electoral politics even if they had no recourse to campaign contributions or rent-seeking activities which induce principal-agent problems. Voters who cast their votes as if they were single-issue voters can affect policy at both the largely ignored margins and in the mainstream of policy formation. Voting is enough.
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Congleton, R.D. Information, special interests, and single-issue voting. Public Choice 69, 39–49 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123853
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123853