Discriminatory Clubs

<p><b>The discriminatory logic at the heart of multilateralism</b><br><br>Member selection is one of the defining elements of social organization, imposing categories on who we are and what we do. <i>Discriminatory Clubs</i> shows how international organizations are like social clubs, ones in which institutional rules and informal practices enable states to favor friends while excluding rivals.<br><br>Where race or socioeconomic status may be a basis for discrimination by social clubs, geopolitical alignment determines who gets into the room to make the rules of global governance. Christina Davis brings together a wealth of data on membership provisions for more than three hundred organizations to reveal the prevalence of club-style selection on the world stage. States join organizations to deepen their association with a particular group of states¿most often their allies¿and for the gains from policy coordination. Even organizations that claim to be universal, to target narrow issues,