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.

探究精英国际俱乐部成员接纳外人的动因。本研究立足于大国俱乐部与核俱乐部两大背景，提出接纳过程受内部竞争之助而推进，受内部勾结之阻而受阻。内部竞争通过两条因果路径促进外人融入。首先，当内部成员相信外人的崛起将提升其在俱乐部中的地位时，他们便有动力支持俱乐部扩张。内部成员直接帮助外人，并与其他内部成员对抗，以阻止外人被排斥于俱乐部之外。其次，内部竞争将资源从保护俱乐部边界转移，造成集体行动困境。尽管无人希望外人加入，但俱乐部成员均不愿承担排斥外人的成本。外人得以融入，正是因为缺乏有组织的内部反对。相反，内部勾结保护俱乐部免受外人侵扰，并提高会员的物质和象征性成本。通过过程追踪法，本文以日本帝国加入大国俱乐部和中国加入核俱乐部两个案例进行验证，论证效果显著，并对我们思考种族主义、权力转移、地位以及核扩散等问题具有启示意义。