UKIP and the Organisational Challenges Facing Right-Wing Populist APE parties (Amir Abedi and Thomas Lundberg)

Análisis de los partidos no establecidos y de sus características en contraposición con los partidos establecidos, usando de ejemplo el UKIP.

APE classification criteria

• A party that challenges the status quo in terms of major policy issues and political system issues
• A party that perceives itself as a challenger to the parties that make up the political establishment
• A party that asserts that tehre exists a fundamental divide between the political establishment and the people. It thereby implies that all establishment parties, be they in government or in opposition are esentially the same. (It captures a central element in most definitions of populism). 

UKIP challenges the status quo on one major policy issue (British membership of the EU).
UKIP promotes a change in the British Political system. It seems UKIP want to turn the clock back not only about EU, also about the devolution process in UK). Therefore, UKIP stands firmly against the status quo on major policy issues. 

UKIP members claims that the main parties are esentially the same.

Extreme right classification criteria (Muddle)

• Nationalism
• Racism
• Xenophobia
• Anti-democracy
• Strong state

UKIP is a populist APE right-wing populist party.

Organisation and life cycles

APE parties can be expected to focus on policy-seeking, intraparty democracy-seeking and vote-seeking goals. These parties are not likely to sacrifice their anti-establishment objectives. 

Three states development

1. Develop and comunicate its identity and message and secure a constituency
   Policy seeking and intraparty democracy-seeking goals
   Attract memebers and supporters
   Novice ideologuesCharismatic leader with creative abilities and rhetorical qualities
   Party decision-making bodies are non-existent or subordinate
   
   In the UKIP, the founder and first leader Alan Sked exercised a significant amount of personal control over his party. He refused to believe that anyone had skills other than his own.
2. Vote-seeking goals
   It can not be longer run as a one man show, less personalised. A change in the party leadership may occur, if the leader does not possess the organisational skills and stategic foresight necessary
   Need levels of intraparty ,factionalism
   More effective campaign management
   Require activists with more political experience and administrative skills
   
   Sked resigned the leadership in 1997
3. Party's attention shifts to office-seeking goals and its government aspiration is noticed and taken seriously by other
   Establishing and solidifying its reputation
   Tone down its criticism of competitors
   Relationships must be developed and cultivated
   Secure credibility
   Leader with the abilities of a moderator and stabiliser
   Organisational structures
   Institutionalisation become in some cases a challenge, specially for right-wing populist parties
   Organisational dimensions
   Proper balance of internal coherence and differentiation
   Firmly established division of labour among party members and bodies.

The scope of change necessary to meet systemic pressures and the requirements of eventual government participation is much greater for these groups than the pressures faced by their mainstream competitors precisely because their ‘movement’ character, peculiar leadership style and ‘unorthodox’ organisational make-up are interwoven with their core message.

Office-seeking APE parties face the dilemma of maintaining their radical opposition identity and challenger appeal while at the same time transforming their structures in order to enhance the effectiveness of their parliamentary and governmental work.

APE parties often do not have effective intraparty decision-making bodies and procedures. Hence they can easily be torn apart by internal conflict.

Furthermore, membership dues are important resources for newer and smaller parties, and government aspirations may attract a great number of new members expecting policy rewards or party and public offices for themselves. Yet a quickly growing number of members may be a double-edged sword for APE parties because they are likely to attract more ‘novice ideologues’.

Different stages in an APE party’s life cycle require a leadership with different, task-appropriate skill sets. It also shows that these parties are more likely to fail in achieving institutionalisation and securing long-term survival if they have major electoral success and become potential governing parties too quickly after their foundation, at a moment of organisational immaturity.

Inadequate leadership skills and misguided strategic orientations may result in turmoil and the premature demise of new formations under those circumstances. Thus, sustainable organisational change is more likely to occur in those office-seeking APE parties that have reached the final stage of their development before they decide to make government participation their main goal.

UKIP situation
 Despite its attempts to build upon its 2004 European Parliament electoral success, the party has failed to attract significant support. Not wishing to be seen as a single-issue party, UKIP has broadened out its policy agenda, concentrating heavily on immigration (where it seeks a major reduction), the economy (calling for less regulation, lower taxes and ‘freer’ trade policies) and devolution of power (which it opposes).  UKIP did not fare well in recent polling. UKIP has also experienced trouble in attracting donation.  Perhaps most importantly, however, on the crucial issue of whether Britain should
remain in the EU, 56 per cent of those polled by ICM in October 2007. The majority of British people appear to disagree with UKIP’s most important policy.


The party seemed to view itself as having enough of a ‘movement’. UKIP chose to remain true to its APE status and not sacrifice its populist nature.

UKIP can function almost like a pressure group, however, and possibly have some impact on Conservative Party policy. Furthermore, the presence of UKIP could act as something of a safety
valve for the Conservatives: a place for disaffected party members (and possibly even politicians) to go.
In this sense, the two parties are not necessarily enemies and can exist almost symbiotically.

Parliamentary Affairs Vol.62 No. 1, 2009, 72-87
Advance Access Publication 3 October 2008
Amir Abedi and Thomas Carl Lundberg