More Than a Door: Club Identity, Discretion, and the Politics of Inclusion in Rotterdam’s Nightlife

Exclusion in nightlife spaces is rarely the product of explicit rules alone. Rather, it emerges through a complex interplay of informal discretion, aesthetic norms, and fragmented governance. In Rotterdam, this dynamic plays out within a nightlife sector that is formally committed to inclusion yet still marked by persistent risks of racialised exclusion. This thesis examines how clubs in Rotterdam balance door policy practices and club identity with efforts to promote inclusive access. Based on 12 semi-structured interviews with managers, bouncers, and professionals involved in nightlife policy in Rotterdam, this study explores how club-led cultural production, discretionary access decisions, and weak enforcement frameworks shape who feels welcome in nightlife spaces. The analysis foregrounds the role of club identity as an informal regulatory force, enacted through music programming, aesthetics, staffing, and marketing, which curates audiences long before guests reach the door. It also highlights how bouncers, operating as street-level bureaucrats, exercise discretion in ways that both reflect and reproduce racialised patterns of exclusion. Governance frameworks such as the Panel Deurbeleid provide voluntary guidance, but enforcement remains limited and fragmented, leaving much of the work of inclusion to individual actors navigating tensions between commercial imperatives and normative commitments. The study contributes to research on aesthetic governance, institutional racism, and informal regulation in nightlife, offering insights for both academic debates and local policy.