Single Mindedness Theory

The Single-Mindedness Theory (SMT) studies the effects of social groups' preferences on the political equilibria and affirms that those groups which are more able to focus on the minimum number of issues gain a greater political power which enables them to eventually get what they require.

Main concepts

The theory represents one of the most remarkable examples of political failure in the attempt to achieve the welfare of society. In full accordance with Buchanan's vision of governments as "Leviathans" and using political competition models which exploit the probabilistic voting model approach, the theory demonstrates how those groups which dissipate their mindedness over a great number of issues are more vulnerable to the political action of more focalized and single-minded groups.The main feature characterizing a SMT model is the existence of an endogenous density function in the political candidate maximand which shape the distribution of the so-called "swing voters" (those voters who do not have any particular preference for any candidate) and determines the magnitude of these voters' migration toward one or another candidate as a result of a change in the government's policy.

Individuals have political preferences, whose degree of homogeneity is captured by a density function which is monotonically increasing in the consumption of goods (or leisure as in Sala-i-Martin and Mulligan's model). The density function represents a proxy for the political power of a group, since more ideologically homogeneous groups are more politically successful.

Economists

Pioneer economists who started to deal with the single-mindedness issues were Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin (1999) and Profeta (2002).

Fields of research

One of the pros of the SMT is represented by its broad applicability in many fields of social economics: labor market, pension systems, environmental policies, distribution of lands, secessions, division of powers, industrial policies and many others. Another advantage of the theory is its ability to suggest possible solution to political failures: reducing the power of single-minded groups by increasing the mindedness of more disadvantaged groups (i.e. via the constitution of associative organizations) would help them to increase the political power of these groups and thus to enable governments to undertake more redistributive policies.The theory was also used to find several formulae which aim to describe the way politicians tax in the real world (see Canegrati's formulae)

References

*Canegrati, Emanuele. "The Single Mindedness Theory of Labour Unions", ATINER International Symposium in Economics, Athens, 2006
*Mulligan, Sala-i-Martin."Social Security in Theory and Practice: Facts and Political Theories", NBER, 1999