Talk:Great power/GA4

GA Review
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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 21:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review--sorry you've had to wait so long for one. Comments to follow in the next 1-5 days. Thanks in advance for your work, Khazar2 (talk) 21:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

This article does a good job of defining the limits of a nebulous term while also exploring the limits of those definitions. I'm concerned by the quality of the sourcing at points, however, as well as some sections that appear to provide analysis while lacking citations. Specifics are below, but as a general note, I'd suggest this article would benefit from moving away from quick Google searches and into more in-depth reading; many of the sources appear to be snatches of text from faculty websites or minor newspapers (e.g., the Washington Times) opining that this or that country has this or that status. In contrast, Paul Kennedy appears to have written a whole book on this subject that could presumably provide more glue to hold these disparate opinions together, and is clearly a more authoritative source. The Encarta article and Danilovic book chapters are good steps in this direction; I'd suggest the article find more sources that address the subject as a whole.

It seems to me that this article will need some substantial rewriting for neutrality (for example, to put Brzezinski in context to avoid his voice dominating the article) and better sourcing/research, particularly in the section discussing approaches/criticisms of the great power concept. I'm therefore not listing it as a GA at this time. I realize you've had an unfairly long wait for this review, however, and I'll be glad to put in a word at WT:GAN when you renominate to make sure someone picks it up more quickly. Good luck, and thanks again for your interest in this one, Khazar2 (talk) 17:16, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Specific suggestions are below: Other important criteria throughout history are that great powers should have enough influence to be included in discussions of political and diplomatic questions of the day, and have influence on the final outcome and resolution. Historically, when major political questions were addressed, several great powers met to discuss them. Before the era of groups like the United Nations, participants of such meetings were not officially named, but were decided based on their great power status. These were conferences which settled important questions based on major historical events. This might mean deciding the political resolution of various geographical and nationalist claims following a major conflict, or other contexts. There are several historical conferences and treaties which display this pattern, such as the Congress of Vienna, the Congress of Berlin, the discussions of the Treaty of Versailles which redrew the map of Europe, and the Treaty of Westphalia."
 * ""India: Emerging Power", by Stephen P. Cohen, p. 60" -- is this a book? If so, it should be italicized, not in quotation marks, and ideally the publisher should be given.
 * " and have the five largest military expenditures in the world." -- is this correct? The linked wiki article says that as of 2013, Japan is the 5th biggest spender (over France).
 * "All states have a geographic scope of interests, actions, or projected power. This is a crucial factor in distinguishing a great power from a regional power; by definition the scope of a regional power is restricted to its region. It has been suggested that a great power should be possessed of actual influence throughout the scope of the prevailing international system." -- can this be cited to a more recent source than Toynbee (90 years out of date)?
 * "These positions have been the subject of criticism" -- the nature and source of this criticism should be explained.
 * "Acclaimed political scientist, geo-strategist, and former United States National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski" -- this big buildup seems like clear peacocking, especially the "acclaimed".
 * "according to P. Shearman, M. Sussex, European Security After 9/11, Ashgate, 2004, both UK and France were global powers now reduced to middle-power status." -- needs page number
 * Should "Peng Er Lam" be written as Er LP?
 * Quotations shouldn't be in italics per MOS:QUOTE (though this isn't a factor for GA)
 * "The Great powers of 1914" -- this seems like irregular capitalization
 * " The newly formed Russian Federation emerged on the level of a great power, leaving the United States as the only remaining global superpower[nb 3] (although some support a multipolar world view)." -- this appears to need citation.
 * It seems to give Brzezinski's views extremely undue weight to give him an entire subsection of his own. Is he considered the sole major figure on this subject? Does no one dispute or respond to his claims?
 * "List of great powers by date" -- this table is interesting, but appears too precise after the article has said that no definitive list is possible. Could some sort of disclaimed be added, at least explaining the methodology of how it was assembled?
 * "appraised the current standing of" -- should be reworded per WP:REALTIME
 * " from superpower cited by Klug, Adam; Smith, Gregor W. (1999). "Suez and Sterling, 1956". Explorations in Economic History 36 (3): 181–203. doi:10.1006/exeh.1999.0720." -- I don't understand this citation. Is "superpower" the title of another work this second work quotes? Also, the page number will be needed for this second work.
 * " However, this approach has the disadvantage of subjectivity." -- this opinion/analysis should be sourced
 * " Iggers and von Moltke "In the Theory and Practice of History", Bobbs-Merril (1973)" -- I'm having trouble parsing this one, too. Is "In the Theory..." the title of a work? Looking at other citations, it looks like Iggers and von Moltke may have had an essay in a book called "The Theory and Practice of History", but that's not what this citation says.
 * "Peace, War, and the European Powers, 1814–1914. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2011-06-12." -- ideally, a page number should be provided for where this quotation appears.
 * It's confusing that Bismarck's quotation is sourced to four different places--why not just one?
 * Reference 20, a downloadable word document from a faculty page, seems unlikely to be a reliable source--has this been published? If so, please give the published copy's information instead.
 * The term middle power has emerged for those nations which exercise a degree of global influence, but are insufficient to be decisive on international affairs. Regional powers are those whose influence is generally confined to their region of the world. -- needs citation
 * This text appears to be original research, pending inline citations: "As a nation will seldom declare that it is acting as such, this usually entails a retrospective examination of state conduct. As a result this is of limited use in establishing the nature of contemporary powers, at least not without the exercise of subjective observation.
 * Project Syndicate seems unlikely to be a reliable source, as does a world crunch op-ed. http://post.queensu.ca/~nossalk/papers/hyperpower.htm seems to be another paper downloaded from a faculty site rather than published. http://www.courses.rochester.edu/stone/PSC272/lectures/05-Pro%20Waltz.ppt is a deadlink to a professor's powerpoint. http://www.gresham.ac.uk/printtranscript.asp?EventId=302 appears to be a dead link to a lecture transcript, which while perhaps permissible as a WP:SPS, still doesn't quite meet standard RS guidelines (which require editorial oversight).
 * I'm not sure about "UW Press: Korea's Future and the Great Powers" used as a source to support claims that a nation is a Great Power, when the book's specific language is "the struggle over a new regional order among the four great powers of the Pacific—Russia, China, Japan, and the United States." It's not clear to me if the source is saying these are Great Powers that are situation in the Pacific, or these are "Great Powers of the Pacific" (i.e., the biggest regional powers). And I'm also just not sure it's a good idea to cite a publisher's web summary as a RS instead of the book itself.