Voter Dissatisfaction & Third Parties

Under what circumstances can third parties effectively compete within electoral systems that otherwise discourage them?

That's the question I posed in a comparative study I wrote for my one of my courses at Georgetown University this summer. I compared the 2000 presidential election in the United States (where the third party challenger, Ralph Nader, did poorly) to the 2010 election in the United Kingdom (where the third party challenger, Nick Clegg, performed relatively well). 

Both countries have electoral systems that discourage third party formation (see Duverger's Law). However, I theorized that the inherent disincentives for voters to support a third party may be overcome when their level of dissatisfaction with the status quo reaches a high enough level. That data I collected supported this theory. It's not a ground-breaking finding by any means, but it does have some serious implications. As I write:

"To the extent that voter dissatisfaction is a predictor of third party support, the case in the United Kingdom suggests what may lie ahead for the United States. Since 2000, public opinion in the United States has trended toward where public opinion in United Kingdom was in 2010. The number of Americans who believe the United States is on the right track decreased by 25 points from 2000 to 26% in 2011. 

 In the same period of time, the number of Americans who are satisfied with the United States system of government and how well it is working decreased by 26 points to 42%. Unemployment in the United States rose to over 9%. In the 2012 presidential election, voter dissatisfaction with government and the direction of the country may create a vacuum in which a third party candidate emerges. Voters’ fears of wasting their votes or spoiling the election by voting for a third party candidate may be overcome by a greater desire for an alternative to the two major parties."

Full text after the jump.

Voter Dissatisfaction and Third Parties