Editing Great power (section)

===Status dimension===
Formal or informal acknowledgment of a nation's great-power status has also been a criterion for identifying a great power. As political scientist [[George Modelski]] notes, "The status of Great power is sometimes confused with the condition of being powerful. The office, as it is known, did in fact evolve from the role played by the great military states in earlier periods... But the Great power system institutionalizes the position of the powerful state in a web of rights and obligations."<ref>{{cite book |title=Principles of World Politics |last=Modelski |first=George |publisher=Free Press |year=1972 |page=141 |isbn=978-0-02-921440-4}}</ref>

Modelski's approach restricts analysis to the epoch following the 1814-1815 [[Congress of Vienna]] at which great powers were first formally recognized.<ref name="When the Stakes27"/> In the absence of such a formal act of recognition it has been suggested that great-power status can arise by implication by judging the nature of a state's relations with other great powers.<ref name="Power in World Politics">Domke, William K – "Power, Political Capacity, and Security in the Global System", Contained in: Stoll and Ward (eds) – ''Power in World Politics'', Lynn Rienner Publications (1989)</ref>

A further option is to examine a state's willingness to act as a great power.<ref name="Power in World Politics"/> As a country 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.

Other important criteria throughout history are that great powers should have enough influence to be included in discussions of contemporary political and diplomatic questions, and exercise influence on the outcome and resolution. Historically, when major political questions were addressed, several powers met to discuss them. Before the era of groups like the United Nations, participants of such meetings were not officially named but rather were decided based on their implied great-power status. These were conferences that settled important questions based on major historical events.{{efn|The 1648 [[Peace of Westphalia]] would qualify. The 325 [[First Council of Nicaea]] might also fit the definition.}}