The Role of Rivals in International Organizations: A Review Article

Abstract This article reviews Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations by Christina L. Davis. After highlighting the many contributions of this pathbreaking work to political science scholarship, it discusses one of the manuscript's core claims: that members of international organizations (IOs) use membership to favor their allies and exclude their rivals. Specifically, it examines a potential tension that leading states may face between keeping rivals out of these organizations for security reasons versus allowing them to join to constrain their behavior and socialize them into the IO's norms. It explores whether consideration of scope conditions, IO reforms, or international regime complexes can help explain IO behavior toward rivals. In doing so, the review suggests productive directions for future work and argues that Discriminatory Clubs will spark many exciting and fruitful research directions.