What happens in a merger? Experiences of the State Department for Water Resources in Khorezm, Uzbekistan

Even though the merger between the two Ministries was supposed to create two equally important departments within one Ministry, the analysis shows that the Department of Water Resources got submerged into the organisation. The water department lost its old organisational objective of distributing water 'equitably' to agricultural water users. The dominant objective of the whole organisation became the old objective of the agricultural department, namely fulfilling the target of the state order. In addition, the ability of the water resource department to manage and to control water resources was reduced during the merger. The merger reduced not only the resource power of the water department, but also its process power. The collected data shows that the decisions on water distribution were strongly influenced by the agricultural department and the governors of the districts.