Glossary

Definitions of terms used throughout CountryReports.

This glossary contains 1,144 terms used throughout CountryReports — political, economic, cultural, historical, and geographic terminology referenced in country profiles and articles. Terms are drawn from authoritative sources including the Library of Congress.

""popular"" sectors: A term similar to popular culture, referring to the masses of working-class, underemployed, and unemployed citizens.; Source: Library of Congress
ayllu: A self-governing and land-owning peasant community in the Andean highlands. May refer to either a village, a kinship group, or a class-like organization, usually based on collective agriculture. Although a pre-Columbian term, ayllu has been used as a synonym for contemporary highland Peasant Communities.
Byzantine: Medieval Christian civilization that combined European and Asian cultures on an ancient Greco-Roman foundation. Centered at Byzantium (known as Constantinople 330-1930, and later called Istanbul), the Byzantine Empire occupied western Turkey and the Balkans and, as the center of Orthodox Christianity, exerted strong influence on many of the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe.
chena: Slash-and-burn agriculture. Forest or shrub undergrowth is cleared by cutting and burning. Land is farmed until its productivity falls, then new area is cleared. This type of agriculture usually is associated with shifting cultivation.
Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO): Established in 1985, an economic union of Islamic countries to promote regional cooperation in trade, transportation, communications, culture, and overall economic development. Members in 1996 were Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, the ""Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,"" Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): A United Nations specialized agency established in 1945 to raise living standards and increase the availability of agricultural products.
Four Modernizations: The core of a development strategy aimed at turning the country into a relatively advanced industrialized nation by the year 2000. The modernizations are those of agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defense. The concept was embodied first in the Third Five-Year Plan (1966-70), launched in earnest by Zhou Enlai at the Fourth National People’s Congress (1975), and adopted as the official party line at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee (December 1978).
Great Leap Forward: A drive to increase industrial and agricultural production following the suspension of Soviet aid and the desire to catch up with the advanced nations of the world. The campaign was conceived by Mao Zedong in late 1957, adopted by the National People’s Congress (q.v.)in 1958; it continued through 1960. Emphasis was placed on accelerated collectivization of agriculture, national self-sufficiency, and labor-intensive methods. The campaign resulted in widespread waste of resources and was partially responsible for famine in 1960 and 1961.
Karava: Lower Sinhalese (fisherman) caste that became wealthy because of access to English education and opportunities for involvement with plantation agriculture and modern commercial enterprise.
Kardecian spiritualism: Allen Kardec (a pseudonym) founded Kardecism, a spiritualist religion, in mid-nineteenth-century France. Imported into Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century, the religion was adopted by members of Brazil’s upper classes eager to identify with French culture. It centers on séances in which the dead return through mediums and give the living advice.; Source: Library of Congress
kebatinan: An amalgam of animist, Hindu-Buddhist, and Islamic (especially Sufi) mystical elements that combine to form Javanese mysticism. As a body of belief, kebatinan is officially recognized in the 1945 constitution and is administered by the Department of Education and Culture rather than by the Department of Religious Affairs. Also known as kejawen, agama Jawa, or Javanism.
Khasa: A term applied to the peoples and languages in the western parts of Nepal, closely related to the cultures of northern India.
Lao Theung: Literally, Laotian of the mountain slopes; group--including Kammu, Loven, and Lamet--that traditionally lives in medium altitudes, practices swidden, or slash-and-burn-agriculture, and speaks Mon-Khmer languages and dialects. According to the 1985 census, approximately 24 percent of the population. Regarded as original inhabitants of Laos, formally referred to by ethnic Lao as kha, or slave.
multilaterally developed socialist state: The proclaimed goal for Romania’s social and economic development to be achieved by the year 2000. The goal envisioned an industrially advanced socialist nation with an efficient and productive agriculture and a well-educated population enjoying a high standard of living.
negdel: Mongol term for a herding collective. Comprises agricultural stations and herding camps in the somon (q.v.) and is subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry. Contrast with state farm, which produces crops.
New Culture Movement: Refers to the period between 1917 and 1923, which was marked by student and intellectual ferment and protests against the warlord government. Culminated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919.
Nihon (or Nippon): Japanese term for Japan, based on the two Chinese ideographs (riben in pinyin romanization), meaning source of the sun. The official pronunciation, as designated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, is Nippon (or in full, Nippon Koku--Nippon country). The common pronunciation in everyday usage, however, is Nihon (Nihon Koku). The use of the term ""Nihon"" antedates Prince Shotoku’s seventh-century reference to himself as the Son of Heaven of the Land of the Rising Sun and possibly dates from the establishment of the Nihon-fu (Japan Office) in the Yamato (q.v.) colony in southern Korea that served as a liaison office of the Yamato court to the Chinese court, probably as early as the sixth century. Marco Polo (or his scribe) referred to present-day Japan as Cipingu (Ribenguo in pinyin romanization), which has variously appeared as Cipangu, Jipangu, and Jipan, from which the current spelling of Japan undoubtedly descends.
political culture: The orientation of the citizens of a nation toward politics, and their perceptions of political legitimacy and the traditions of political practice.; Source: Library of Congress
popular sectors: A term similar to popular culture, referring to the masses of working-class, underemployed, and unemployed citizens.
primary sector: Agriculture, extractive activities, and fishing.; Source: Library of Congress
production brigade: Formerly the intermediate administrative level in the people’s commune system, the organizational structure of the collective sector in agriculture. The highest level was the commune; the lowest, the production team. Most brigades were transformed into townships or villages in the period from 1982 to 1985. (See also people’s commune, production team, townships, villages.)
Rastafarian(ism): An Afro-Christian revivalist cult formed in Jamaica in the early 1920s. The so-called Rastafarian Brethren emphasized rejection of both Jamaican and European culture in favor of eventual repatriation to Africa. Identifying Africa with Ethiopia, Rastafarians viewed then Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as God incarnate. As hope of returning to Africa dwindled, Rastafarianism became more of a religious than a political movement. Rastafarians developed a system of beliefs compatible with their poverty and aloofness from society and similar to mystical experiences found in other protest religions. Rastas (as they are known in common parlance) have come to symbolize the movement away from white domination and toward a heightened black identity and pride. Rasta thought, reggae music, dance, and literature have been popularized throughout West Indian culture.; Source: Library of Congress
responsibility system: A practice, first adopted in agriculture in 1981 and later extended to other sectors of the economy, by which local managers are held responsible for the profits and losses of the enterprise. This system partially supplanted the egalitarian distribution method, whereby the state assumed all profits and losses.
slash-and-burn agriculture: Method of cultivation whereby areas of the forest are burned and cleared for planting, the ash providing some fertilization. Area is cultivated for several years and then left fallow for a decade or longer. These practices by subsistence farmers could destroy almost half of world’s remaining 2.08 billion hectares of tropical forests, according to a study released by Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in August 1996.; Source: Library of Congress
Slavophiles: Members of the Russian intelligentsia in the mid-nineteenth century who advocated the preservation of Slavic, and specifically Russian, culture rather than opening Russian society and institutions to the influences of West European culture. Philosophically opposed to Westernizers (q.v.).
structuralists: Advocates of structuralism, an economic policy that blames chronic inflation primarily on foreign trade dependency, insufficient local production, especially in agriculture, and political struggles among entrenched vested interests over government contracts. Structuralists advocate encouraging economic development and modernization through Keynesian and neo-Keynesian policies of governmental stimulative actions, accompanied by organizational reforms. Structuralists contend that monetarist (q.v.) policies retard growth and support the status quo.