Members Only: How States Favor Friends and Exclude Rivals
In her new book Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations, Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Christina Davis takes a deep dive into the membership rules of international and so-called universal organizations. And she finds that these entities function more like golf clubs (with hidden rules and sponsorship requirements) than soccer teams (with performance metrics) when it comes to selecting members, with a tendency to favor geopolitical alignments. Harvard College undergraduate student Hazel Genieser sat down with Davis to explore her findings. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: My first question is to start with the intriguing title of your new book: Discriminatory Clubs. You've said in the past that “the ability to exclude other countries from a club is power.” Can you elaborate on this, and explain a little bit more about your central thesis?
A: Yes, I started the book thinking about how countries' choices to join international organizations shapes their position in international society. The choice is not just up to the country applying, it's also other states’ willingness to accept them. I analogize the social patterns of international organizations by describing them as more akin to a golf club than a soccer team; it is a social relationship—about who is welcome in this community, not just the ability to perform—that is being evaluated.
Q: While the comparison to social clubs is an interesting one, is there anything that you found from your research that's very specific to how sovereign states operate amongst each other?
A: Yes. A state’s pursuit of sovereignty is one of its core goals, and joining organizations helps to strengthen their sovereignty, because it's a path to recognition. At the same time, when a state joins an organization, it must accept rules from other members in the group, and that means giving up sovereignty. This tension is quite interesting and is unique to thinking about states and society as distinct from individuals.
Q: You have spoken before about the deliberately vague accession criteria of international organizations. Therefore, the considerations for whether to admit a state must happen in backchannels. What was your experience of researching these masked conversations?
A: When I first observed the vagueness of the rules, I was intrigued. One could imagine more specific conditions would set a high standard of entry that would require governments to change their policies to advance the goals of the organization before they would be allowed entry. But as you say, by not stating exact criteria for entry, it opens up the possibility for many other conditions to become relevant. In the book, I focus on why security ties are often the condition that is prioritized, but there could be many other criteria that could be brought into play.
To your question about the backchannel stories I would hear about, I remember a Korean official once telling me about how when Korea wanted to join the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] in the 1980s, they were politely told that it was an exclusive club that did not accept all who want to join, without being given a clear reason why Korea didn’t qualify. Later, the end of the Cold War and democratization in Korea would change how both sides viewed the matter and Korea successfully joined the OECD in 1996. So, it isn't clear when a country passes a threshold to be allowed to join, and we see that same dynamic in other places. For example, Iran is excluded from the WTO [World Trade Organization]. Clearly, the reasons why Iran is not making negotiation progress lie more in objections about their nuclear program and their support for terrorism, although those issues are not related to any written conditions for joining the WTO.
Q: On that note, you've said that security considerations have a huge effect on who is admitted into intergovernmental organizations. As conflicts around the world continue to polarize the international community, what effects do you think that these will have on international organizations and their membership selection?
A: International organizations make rules to govern economic and environmental security policies and distribute benefits among members, so the question of who you want to help make those rules for global governance is very important.
As states are choosing to partner with allies and friends, they're excluding rivals. Thus, there is a possibility that you would see a fragmentation of cooperation with rival clubs. That poses a problem for some issues, like climate change or trade, that would benefit from one single set of rules. Global rivalries are pushing states into separate camps, which may slow down cooperation. When China initiated the establishment of a new development bank, the AIIB [Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank], the United States and Japan refused to join, even though they share the goal to see improved investment in the infrastructure of East Asia. So far, the competing development banks have coordinated their lending to specific projects, but some worry that the competition could lower standards for lending related to environmental protection or fuel unsustainable debt levels for some recipient governments.
Q: While fragmentation remains a worry, will the decampment of certain states lead to increased or stronger connections?
A: Right. We can see this happening right now through proliferation. New, small groupings of friends on an issue means they can go deeper in their agreements, whether it’s a climate club with high environmental standards or a free-trade group with a customs union for very low tariff barriers. Overall, these small groups can lead to more net cooperation. However, this effect can also lead to increased rivalry as more and more organizations lead to memberships overlapping and interests being undercut. For example, the proliferation of trade agreements makes sense for diplomacy but is hard for business—firms must navigate complex rules of origin across different agreements.
Q: While other international actors play a critical role in shaping entry or nonentry into an international organization, domestic factors can't be ignored. One pertinent example you touched on in the book was Ukraine around 2013, and the influence of their populace in choosing whether to lean toward the West or Russia after the President Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a free trade agreement with the EU. From your research, what do you think is the balance between the influence of individual leaders and the populace?
A: The decision about international cooperation sometimes is an elite level, diplomatic negotiation. Yet, the choice of joining a European Union or Russian customs union in Ukraine in 2013 brought up a higher level of identity issues, as well as security issues. When these issues come up, the public really cares. The same might be said about Brexit—clearly a membership choice that engaged the public. When states are excluded from international cooperation, public discourse may intensify too; the China-Taiwan issue is a prime example that captivates all levels of the public in both regions. Therefore, in the book I emphasize that global governance is not just a contract over specific issues, but rather, a choice about the relationships and the direction a country wants to take for its future. As such, the public cares and the elite cares.
Q: Speaking of individual leaders and their effects on intergovernmental relationships, as the probability of another Trump presidency becomes ever more likely, what effect do you envision this will have on international society?
A: I was writing the final chapters of the book during the Trump administration, worrying about how many new cases I would have to add if the US started to exit more organizations!
The Trump administration was a new direction for the way the US approached multilateral governance, after having been a founding member of many important international organizations.The exit steps the US took, such as leaving the Paris Agreement or threatening to leave both the WTO and the WHO [World Health Organization], were also radical in the discussion of international organizations, which usually have a sticky membership—when countries join, they rarely exit.
As for the question regarding the consequence of a second Trump administration, I think that it sets a tone about countries trying to “go it alone.” If states follow this example, it will have a negative impact on issues which require multilateral cooperation, like climate and trade. Whether the Trump administration would actually withdraw from substantial organizations is an open question. A retreat from international organizations would not be without historical precedent: the US led the way to establishing the League of Nations and then did not partake. The retreat of the United States from multilateral institutions may be what lies ahead, and it will make it difficult for other states to come together when the most powerful state is reluctant or openly antagonistic to using multilateralism as a part of international cooperation.
Q: Over the course of your research for this book, did you discover any insights that were contrary to your hypothesis, perhaps changing the direction of the book?
A: The last chapter that I worked on was about the so-called universal organizations. They claim to be open to all states, but still have a very politicized process in evaluating who to accept with a vote on membership. I had not fully appreciated the intense level of politicization over the recognition of states in these universal organizations until I researched the debates over North and South Korea, Taiwan and the World Health Organization, and of course, Palestine. The depth of diplomatic and political attention given to these questions was interesting, and they offer surprising contrasts for when states get over that hurdle to achieve acceptance.
When you have divided, contested sovereignty, there are so many different pathways forward. This is evident when considering the examples of German unification contrasted with North and South Korea, or instability for both China-Taiwan and Israel-Palestine. Therefore, seeing how membership in international organizations has been at the center of defining ‘what is a state’ was one of the most interesting parts of the project.
Q: What motivated you to begin writing this book?
A: As a scholar, I am interested in both the study of Japan and international relations. When the experience of Japan sheds light on a broader question, I expand my research from there. In this case, my motivations began with how Japan used organizations to establish sovereignty in the nineteenth century and to overcome discrimination and fear of it as a former enemy after WWII. Joining organizations under the sponsorship of the United States was a way for Japan to reenter international society. The experience of Japan with multilateralism helped to motivate me to look at these questions more broadly.
Q: If you wanted your readers to take away one thing about the operation of international organizations, what would you like that to be?
A: The relationships between states are very valuable, and therefore, joining organizations is an important way that states establish community. We need to recognize that it's not just a quid pro quo bargain over issues. Just like our own social relationships can evolve in many different directions, states also make choices about which states to join closer in association. I hope that people can learn from their own social interactions to understand the relevance this has on state-to-state cooperation, rather than just evaluating multilateralism based on trade statistics or compliance with an organization’s rules.
Contributor Bios
Faculty Associate Christina Davis is the director of the Program on US-Japan Relations at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She is the Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics in the Department of Government at Harvard University. Her research interests focus on the politics of international trade; foreign policy of East Asia and Japan; and geopolitics and international organizations. Her new book, Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations, was published in 2023 by Princeton University Press. Watch her seven-minute book talk from the International Book Blitz on the Weatherhead YouTube channel.
Hazel Genieser is a first year student at Harvard College studying government and East Asian studies.