All 4 Uses

status quo
in
Mountains Beyond Mountains
(Edited)

Now they were protesting the continuation of the status quo.
Chpt 2.10 *

status quo = existing state of affairs
But it didn't follow, as some self-styled radicals said, that good works without revolution only prolonged the status quo, that the only thing projects like Cange really accomplish is the creation of "dependency."
Chpt 2.10
They supported, with small sums and advice, a few public health projects in far-flung places, such as Chiapas in Mexico, and their research branch, dedicated to criticizing the status quo in international health, was assembling a book about the special worldwide vulnerability of impoverished women to AIDS.
Chpt 2.12
But it seemed to them that the high councils in international health often used this analytic tool to rationalize an irrational status quo: mdr treatment was cost-effective in a place like New York, but not in a place like Peru.
Chpt 3.19

Definitions:

(1) (status quo)
the existing situation (the way things are now or the way they typically are)
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)