Competition, Collusion, and Inclusion: Racial Equality in Elite International Clubs

What causes members of elite international clubs to accommodate outsiders? I take up this question in the context of the great power club and the nuclear club. I argue that accommodation is facilitated by insider competition and hindered by insider collusion. Competition enables outsider inclusion through two casual pathways. First, certain insiders are incentivized to embrace club expansion when they believe that the outsider’s rise will advance their position within the club. Insiders directly aid the outsider and work against other insiders from denying the outsider entry into the club. Second, insider competition draws resources away from the protection of the club boundaries and creates a collective action problem. No insider may desire the outsider’s entry but no club member may be individually willing to bear the costs of excluding them. The outsider gains inclusion because of the lack of organized insider resistance. In contrast, insider collusion guards the club from outsiders and raises the material and symbolic costs for membership. Using process-tracing, the argument is tested in two cases: the inclusion of Imperial Japan into the great power club and China’s inclusion into the nuclear club. The argument performs well and has implications for how we think about racism, power transitions, status, and nuclear proliferation.