Abstract
In recent years there has been a proliferation of international rules, laws and institutional forms in world politics. Some policymakers, a fair number of international relations scholars, and many international lawyers posit that these trends will lead to more rulebased outcomes in world politics. This paper suggests a contrary position: institutional thickness paradoxically weakens global governance structures. Institutional proliferation erodes the causal pathways through which regimes ostensibly strengthen international cooperation. After a certain point, therefore, the proliferation of regimes shifts global governance from rule-based outcomes to power-based outcomes. To demonstrate these effects, the paper examines two cases: the aftermath of the 2001 Doha Declaration on intellectual property rights and public health, and recent efforts to create an WMD interdiction regime that permits the boarding of ships on the high seas. These cases show that there is little “viscosity” within global governance structures.
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