Transboundary water decision-making takes place in a power-loaded environment. Apart from conflicts or cooperation-based outcomes, partial or complete status quo is also possible outcome in transboundary water interactions. Literature in the last two decades has primarily focused on conflicts and/or cooperation only, with a limited understanding of the status quo and its various forms. Drawing from the work of Bacharach and Baratz and other power scholars from sociology, international relations, and public policy, this article presents tactics for non-decision making and non-action, leading to a status quo. Specifically, we address the question: Conceptually, based on various strands of literature, we develop a typology of status quo comprised of (1) renunciation; (2) abstention; (3) non-participation; and (4) non-action and showing that the status quo is a significant intermediary (at times temporally extended) outcome in transboundary water interaction. Like conflicts and cooperation, we posit that the status quo is often purposefully maintained due to the political, social, cultural, economic, and biophysical aspects of the river basins. We illustrate this by the example of three transboundary river basins: Brahmaputra, Maritsa, and Euphrates-Tigris. Our empirical analysis also identified an additional type of status quo, ‘non-significant deliberation’ in a multi-track diplomacy setting. This tactic refers to not purposefully allowing informal negotiations to transform or influence the highest level of political deliberation (i.e., track-1 diplomacy).

中文翻译：

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跨界水域现状：剖析不决策和不行动

跨界水资源决策是在电力负载环境中进行的。除了基于冲突或合作的结果外，部分或全部现状也是跨界水相互作用的可能结果。过去二十年的文学主要只关注冲突和/或合作，对现状及其各种形式的理解有限。本文借鉴巴哈拉克和巴拉茨以及其他来自社会学、国际关系和公共政策领域的权力学者的著作，提出了不决策和不行动导致现状的策略。具体来说，我们解决这个问题：从概念上讲，基于各种文献，我们开发了一种现状类型学，包括（1）放弃； (2) 弃权； （三）不参加的； (4) 不采取行动，并表明现状是跨界水相互作用的一个重要中间（有时是暂时的）结果。与冲突与合作一样，我们认为，由于流域的政治、社会、文化、经济和生物物理方面的原因，现状往往是有目的地维持的。我们通过三个跨境河流流域的例子来说明这一点：布拉马普特拉河、马里察河和幼发拉底河-底格里斯河。我们的实证分析还发现了另一种现状，即多轨外交环境中的“非重大审议”。这种策略是指不故意让非正式谈判改变或影响最高级别的政治审议（即第一轨外交）。