Abstract Water diplomacy is regarded as a means to prevent conflict and to enhance peace through the cooperative management of transboundary water resources. There have been calls for water diplomacy to be given further attention, especially by foreign policy and security specialists, and to be extended to non-state actors through informal dialogue processes. The paper critically questions the qualitative changes water diplomacy delivers and argues for further analytical scrutiny on its efficacy. Using a critical hydropolitics perspective, the paper advances understanding of the way power asymmetries presiding over contested waters are altered or maintained, particularly through informal diplomacy. To exemplify, the paper uses Track 2 diplomacy or an informal dialogue process between non-state actors. Drawing on the case study of the Track 2 process by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, the paper examines how foreign affairs experts deliberated water security in the Mekong river basin in the face of rapid dam development. The analysis demonstrates that information was forwarded to officials within the ministry of foreign affairs and created alternative knowledge channels, differentiated from networks of water and environmental ministries. Informal diplomacy also enabled downstream states, usually considered to have less influence on issues of water allocation, to exercise power in agenda-setting and influencing the debate. However, flows of finance around dam development within the region made it difficult for informal diplomacy to provide alternatives to existing transboundary water arrangements such that it changes power relations manifested in formal diplomacy. The paper suggests attentive analysis on the links between state and non-state actors through informal diplomacy and the nuanced way resources and networks are mobilised to control water resources.

中文翻译：

---

非正式水外交与权力：以湄公河流域寻求水安全为例

摘要 水外交被认为是通过跨界水资源的合作管理来预防冲突和促进和平的一种手段。有人呼吁进一步关注水外交，特别是外交政策和安全专家，并通过非正式对话程序将其扩展到非国家行为者。该论文批判性地质疑水外交带来的质变，并主张对其功效进行进一步的分析审查。该论文使用批判性的水文政治观点，加深了对主导有争议水域的权力不对称的改变或维持方式的理解，特别是通过非正式外交。为了举例说明，本文使用了 Track 2 外交或非国家行为者之间的非正式对话过程。本文借鉴了亚太安全合作委员会对 Track 2 进程的案例研究，研究了外交专家如何在大坝快速开发的情况下审议湄公河流域的水安全问题。分析表明，信息被转发给外交部的官员，并创建了与水和环境部网络不同的替代知识渠道。非正式外交还使通常被认为对水资源分配问题影响较小的下游国家能够在议程设置和影响辩论中行使权力。然而，围绕该地区大坝开发的资金流动使得非正式外交难以为现有的跨界水资源安排提供替代方案，从而改变正式外交中体现的权力关系。该论文建议通过非正式外交以及调动资源和网络以控制水资源的微妙方式对国家和非国家行为者之间的联系进行仔细分析。