Talk:Autocracy/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ljleppan (talk · contribs) 15:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Thebiguglyalien. I'll be taking a look a detailed look at this over the next day or two and will post my observations below. Based on an initial quick look, I'm not anticipating any major concerns. Please note that this is my first GA review, so please let me know if I'm overstepping. -Ljleppan (talk) 15:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Please see a first round of comments below, ordered by level 2 heading. I've marked a few with Y to indicate "all's good, no need to do anything here". For the rest, feel free to comment below each point. I'll continue from "History" tomorrow. -Ljleppan (talk) 19:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: I'm done with the initial review, please see below for my comments. There are a few points w/r/t sourcing I'd like you to address, but other than that this is looking very good. Are these something that you can respond to in a few days, or would you prefer me to put this on hold for a bit? -Ljleppan (talk) 15:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: as there doesn't appear to have been progress on this in the last few days, I'm putting this on hold. That said, I'm not personally in any hurry so it's fine if you want to take some more time. I'll keep this watchlisted, but it'd be good to ping me when you continue. Ljleppan (talk) 06:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

General

• Y Well-written, MOS-compliant.
• Y Earwigs clean, spot checks show no plagiarism from refs.
• Y Broad in coverage without straying to minutiae.
• Y Neutral, no obvious problems with bias or undue weight.
• Y Stable for the last month+.
• Y Suitable amount of suitable illustrations. No obvious licensing problems with images.

Lede

• Y good length and level of detail
• Y At ...it is contrasted with democracy and oligarchy. (emph. mine) oligarchy is not mentioned in the body.
  • Looks like someone added some OR recently. Reverted. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
• Y At ...through appeals to ideology, religion, birthright, or diplomatic recognition., would "malevolent foreign efforts" be a better replacement for "diplomatic recognition"?
  • Does "foreign hostility" work? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
    • Sounds good. -Ljleppan (talk) 05:49, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Etymology and use

• See "References" below.

Political structure

• Y At ...these are not formed through free and fair elections., add "usually" mirroring Tullock (1987, p.7)? Otherwise comes off as somewhat categorical ("a symbolic parliament elected through free and fair elections makes an otherwise autocracy not-an-autocracy").
  • Done. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Origin and development

• Y I don't have a suggested phrasing, but when talking about "stationary bandits", would it make sense to mention that the "banditry" of the "stationary bandits" refers to continuous taxation and is contrasted with "roving bandits'" "occasional plunder" (Olson, 1993, p. 568)?
  • Added "through taxation and other seizure of resources". Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
• Y At ..describe autocracies as limited access orders that arise.., consider introducing the term "Natural State" as a synonym for "limited-access order" (North, Wallis & Weingast, 2008, p. 56), as that would make it easier for the reader to find the relevant section in the cited work (i.e. the heading "The Logic of the Natural State").
  • Done. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
• Y At ...as violence reduces the rents..., the term "rents" comes a bit from the left field. The source appears to use it as a term-of-art (North, Wallis & Weingast, 2008, p. 68 at end note 11), but I wasn't previously familiar with this usage. Can it be replaced with some expression a non-economist reader is more likely to understand? If not, consider wikilinking (to economic rent?) and/or adding an {{efn}} to explain it.
  • Replaced with a link to economic rents. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
• Can ref 22 to North, Wallis & Weingast (2008) be limited to some range of pages?
  • As far as I can tell, this paragraph is a summary of the entire paper. I retained this paragraph from previous version of the article, though I personally wouldn't have added it at all because it cites a primary source to these authors without indicating significance of their specific opinions. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• I found the bit about about colonialism and autocracy in Finkel & Grzymala-Busse (2022, "How Autocracies Emerge") interesting; any chance of mentioning this somewhere?
  • Strike that, already covered at § History §§ Modern era.
• At These methods of succession are the primary distinction between monarchical rule and dictatorial rule; ..., the phrasing reads somewhat absolute in contrast to Tullock (1987, p. 1) stating "I should emphasize the word 'tend'..."
  • Changed to "a common distinction". Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Types of autocracy

• At Historically, monarchies have been the most common of these types..., I can't find the relevant segments from either Tullock (1987, p. 1) or Grzymala-Busse & Finkel (2022, "How Autocracies Are Sustained"). Might be user error on my part.
  • Changed it to "common in medieval Europe", which better reflects Grzymala-Busse & Finkel. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• Siaroff (2013, pp. 229–249) appears to conceptualize autocracies as either totalitarian, sultanistic or "other", with the "other" being called authoritarian: "...authoritarian regimes are defined largely in a negative way: they lack the ideology and mobilization characteristic of totalitarianism, and they also lack the broad arbitrariness of sultanism. [..] Authoritarian regimes are, to some extent, a residual category of autocracies" (Siaroff, 2013, p. 340). As written, this section first presents a dichotomy of "totalitarian or authoritarian", and only then later presents sultanism as (at least implicitly) a type of despotism. Assuming Siaroff's typology is well accepted, (and I understood it correctly,) would it make sense to restructure some of the content in this section to follow it more closely?
  • My understanding is that the authoritarian/totalitarian distinction was developed by Juan José Linz (a major figure in the study of authoritarianism) and this is the widely accepted version. Siaroff then included sultanism as another type in his own writing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• Relating to the above, the third paragraph (An absolute autocracy...) feels a bit disjointed. It's unclear to me how absolutism, despotism and tyranny relate to each other. Are some a subset of others? How do they relate to totalitarian/authoritarian(/sultanism)?
  • That's the fun of political labels: they overlap so much that it becomes difficult to tell them apart. I tried to address this with the final paragraph of the article where it says "The concepts of tyranny and despotism as distinct modes of government were abandoned in the 19th century in favor of more specific typologies." Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

History

• At The idea of dictatorship as a form of tyrannical rule first developed in the 18th century... doesn't Kalyvas (2007, pp. 413-414) continue this thought by pointing out that it's incomplete, with Greek historians already writing similar things? Specifically, "In their Greco-Roman synthesis dictatorship is re-described as 'temporary tyranny by consent' and the tyrant as a 'permanent dictator.'" and surrounding.
  • I've removed this sentence since it doesn't line up with the source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• "State" can presumably be wikilinked earlier.
  • Done. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Political activity

No notes

Study and evaluation

No notes

References

• Y Something weird with Journal of Democracy (ISSN 1086-3214) in the last year. It was dropped from high quality to non-scientific in one of the Nordic publication venue listings, but not others. The refs to it, however, predate this change so no matter.
• I only found the publisher of Kršljanin (2017) in one publication venue listing, where it was classified as basically non-academic (reasons are never given, but lacking proper peer-review or an editorial panel of experts are the common ones). Would it make sense to cite OED instead, which incidentally also gives a partially french origin? See https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3286076103 if you have access.
  • I used the entry for autocrator instead, as it had all of the same info plus some more. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• Y Other than above, all refs appear good and academic.
• Y Missing a few ISSNs under "Journals"; nice if fixed, but not a blocker by any means.
• A couple of errors:
  • Grzymala-Busse, Anna; Finkel, Eugene (2022): "|work= ignored"
    • Seems to have been fixed by someone else. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Kneuer, Marianne (2017): "|journal= ignored"
    • Fixed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Status?

@Ljleppan and Thebiguglyalien: This review was last updated a month ago. Can this be wrapped up soon? RoySmith (talk) 15:34, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@RoySmith: on my part, waiting for the few remaining points above to be addressed. Based on the state of the article and how the first batch of changes went, I don't foresee any problems with making those changes per se, but Thebiguglyalien hasn't edited since 2023-11-09. I personally wouldn't mind waiting a bit more; in its current state, I suppose this would have to be failed because some of my points have to do with sourcing. Ljleppan (talk) 05:15, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Ljleppan, Thebiguglyalien remains on an extended wikibreak, per a talk-page post this past weekend. You should take a look, and decide how to proceed from there, though I think this shouldn't stay open more than two months from the nominator's most recent post. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:48, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ljleppan I basically agree with @BlueMoonset. It looks like nothing more is going to happen to this from the nom's side, so I encourage you to close it as failed. A new nomination can always be made at some point in the future if they decide they want to pick up the work. RoySmith (talk) 22:57, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the talk page message. Sounds like this isn't likely to be completed in the near future, so I'll close this as failed this once I get to a proper computer. For the record, I think the remaining issues are eminently addressable and I do hope that someone™ has the time to take this across the finishing line in the future. Ljleppan (talk) 08:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Closing notes

As the nominator is currently taking an (extended) wikibreak, and some of the above concerns remain unaddressed, I'm somewhat reluctantly failing this nomination. I encourage either the nominator on their return or other editors to address the remaining issues and renominate in the future as I found this a very promising, interesting and valuable article. -Ljleppan (talk) 14:14, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Noting here that I've finally responded to the comments above and I am renominating the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)