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.

Al Saud: Literally, the House of Saud; the patrilineal descendants of Muhammad ibn Saud.
aliyah (pl., aliyot): Literally, going up. The immigration of Jews to Eretz Yisrael, or the Land of Israel. Historians have classified five major periods of immigration to Israel, as follows: First Aliyah (1882- 1903); Second Aliyah (1904-14); Third Aliyah (1919-23); Fourth Aliyah (1924-31); and Fifth Aliyah (1932-39).; Source: Library of Congress
amir: Literally, commander. In many of the Arab states of the gulf, amir often means ruler or prince.; Source: Library of Congress
Aouzou Strip: A rectangle of territory in northern Chad 100 kilometers wide and 1000 kilometers long, paralleling Libya’s southern border. Libya first occupied the strip in 1973 and annexed it in 1976. It is said to contain valuable minerals, including uranium.
Arab Socialist Union: ASU. The mass organization created in 1971 to provide a framework for popular participation and representation within the political system. Reorganized in 1975 to include the local-level Basic Popular Congresses (BPCs) and the intermediates-level Municipal Popular Congresses, (MPCs) both of which send delegated to the national General People’s Congress (GPC--q.v.); organization was disbanded in January 1976. Not to be confused with the Egyptian political organization of the same name.
Asian Development Bank: Established in 1967, the bank assists in economic development and promotes growth and cooperation in developing member countries. The bank is owned by its forty-seven member governments, which include both developed and developing countries in Asia and developed countries in the West.
audiencia: Literally audience or court; a subdivision of a viceroyalty under Spanish colonial administration. As well as being the name of the administrative unit, the audiencia, composed of five men, was the highest governmental authority in the territory. During most of the colonial period, the president of the audiencia held the additional titles of governor and captain general; hence the alternative name for the audiencia was captaincy general. Although technically subordinate to the viceroyalty, the governor, or captain general, was appointed by the Spanish monarch and was responsible only to him or her. In practice, the governor frequently ignored orders from Spain and acted independently. For this reason, the Audiencia of Guatemala was frequently referred to in colonial times as the Kingdom of Guatemala.
autonomous entities (entes autónomos): Autonomous government agencies or state enterprises performing various industrial, commercial, or social services. The constitution stipulated that these bodies were to have a degree of autonomy or decentralization as established by laws enacted with the approval of an absolute majority of the full membership of each chamber of the General Assembly. They were administered by five- to seven-member boards of directors or directors general. Members were either elected by the Senate or appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. The degree of autonomy or decentralization varied. For example, the constitution stipulated that postal, customs, port authority, and public health services were not to be fully decentralized, but rather granted only as much autonomy as was compatible with control by the executive.
bajraktar: The hereditary leader of a bajrak (q.v.). Term literally means ""standard bearer"".; Source: Library of Congress
Baker debt-reduction plan: As part of the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (q.v.), Nicholas F. Brady, the United States secretary of the treasury in the administration of President George H.W. Bush (1989-93), led a United States Government interagency process that determined country eligibility for debt reduction. The Brady Plan has been used to forge agreements between banks and the governments of several Latin American nations.
Bank for International Standards (BIS): Established in 1930 to assist national central banks in managing and investing monetary reserves and to promote international cooperation among those banks.
Bantu: Literally, ""human beings,"" in more than 300 Bantu languages of equatorial and southern Africa. Bantu languages are classified within the central branch of the Niger-Congo language family; characterized by a system of noun classes marked by prefixes, so that each dependent word in a sentence carries a prefix of the same class. Outsiders often simplify by omitting prefix; for example, the amaZulu (people) are known as the Zulu; their language, isiZulu, is also referred to as Zulu. Speakers of seSotho, the BaSotho, are often referred to simply as Sotho peoples. Four major subgroups of Bantu languages--Nguni, Sotho, Tsonga-Shangaan, and Venda--are widely represented in South Africa. They include nine of South Africa’s official languages--isiXhosa, isiZulu, isiNdebele, sePedi, seSotho, seTswana, siSwati, tshiVenda (also luVenda), and xiTsonga. During the apartheid era, the term Bantu was often used in government regulations, official statements, and sometimes in conversation to designate people of black African descent. Because this group was particularly disadvantaged by apartheid, the term Bantu assumed pejorative connotations in many apartheid-era contexts.
Bantustan: An area reserved for an officially designated Bantu-speaking ethnic group during the apartheid era; a term generally supplanted by ""homeland,"" national state, or self-governing state during the 1970s and 1980s.
barrels per day: Production of crude oil and petroleum products is frequently measured in barrels per day, often abbreviated bpd or bd. A barrel is a volume measure of forty-two United States gallons. Conversion of barrels to metric tons depends on the density of a specific product. About 7.3 barrels of average crude oil, or about 7 barrels of heavy crude oil, weigh 1 metric ton. Light products, such as gasoline and kerosene, average close to eight barrels per metric ton.
barrels per day (bpd): Production of crude oil and petroleum products is frequently measured in barrels per day. A barrel is a volume measure of forty- two United States gallons. Conversion of barrels to metric tons depends on the density of the special product. About 7.3 barrels of average crude oil weigh one metric ton. Heavy products would be about seven barrels per metric ton. Light products, such as gasoline and kerosene, would average eight barrels per metric ton.; Source: Library of Congress
big-character posters (dazibao): Posters, limited-circulation newspapers, excerpted press articles, pamphlets, and blackboard news using large-sized ideographs and mounted on walls as a popular form of communication. Used in China since imperial times but more commonly since literacy increased after the 1911 revolution. Used more frequently after 1949 to publicize party programs and as a means of protest. Became ubiquitous during the Cultural Revolution (q.v.); guaranteed as one of the ""four big rights"" in the 1975 state constitution.
Boer: Farmer (Afrikaans); generally used in eighteenth and nineteenth century to refer to white South African settlers of Dutch, German, and French Huguenot origin; generally supplanted by the term Afrikaner (q.v.) in the twentieth century. See also Trekboer.
Bogomil heresy: A religious sect founded in Bulgaria and flourishing in the Balkans between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. It combined beliefs from several contemporaneous religions, most notably the Paulicians from Asia Minor (q.v.). The central belief was that the material world was created by the devil.; Source: Library of Congress
bonze: A general term for a Buddhist monk (as opposed to the more specific bhikku, meaning an ordained monk).
Bund: A political labor organization of Jewish workers founded in Vilna, Lithuania in 1987. The name is an abbreviation in Yiddish for The General Union of Jewish Workers in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. The Bund opposed Zionism and viewed Yiddish as the only secular Jewish language.; Source: Library of Congress
Bund(General Union of Jewish Workers in Russia and Poland): A Jewish socialist movement founded in Vilnius in 1897 by Jewish workers and intellectuals in the Russian Empire (q.v.). The Bund divided into two groups in 1920. The larger group merged with the Bolshevik (q.v.) branch of the communist party, while the minority remained independent until it was suppressed by the Bolshevik government. The Bund was active in Poland between the two world wars.; Source: Library of Congress
bushido: Literally, the way of the warrior (samurai), a term applied to the principles of loyalty and honor; a code of stoic endurance, scorn of danger and death, religious worship of country and sovereign, and proper social relationships; an aesthetic life- style.
caliph: Title of honor adopted by the Ottoman sultans in the sixteenth century, after Sultan Selim I conquered Syria and Palestine, made Egypt a satellite of the Ottoman Empire, and was recognized as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Term literally means ""successor""; in this context, the successor of the Prophet Muhammad.; Source: Library of Congress
capital market: An institutional system of communications, vested largely in the security exchanges, where lenders and borrowers interact with a view to transacting or trading.
Central American Common Market (CACM): The CACM was established by the Organization of Central American States under the General Treaty of Central American Economic Integration signed in Managua, Nicaragua, on December 15, 1960. Its members include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Its original goals included the establishment of a Central American regional free-trade area, a customs union, and the integration of the industrialization efforts of its member countries. Its efforts were curtailed following the 1969 war between El Salvador and Honduras, when the Hondurans reestablished import duties on CACM products. Despite the continued existence of the organization, most intraregional economic relations have been handled on a bilateral basis since 1970.
Central Bank: Usually a federal government-related institution that is entrusted with control of the commercial banking system and with the issuance of the currency. Responsible for setting the level of credit and money supply in an economy and serving as the bank of last resort for other banks. Also has a major impact on interest rates, inflation, and economic output. Under Article 97 of the constitution, the Central Bank of Chile is an autonomous body.
Ch'ngsan-ni Method, or Ch'ngsan-ri: A personalized, ""on-the -spot"" management method or spirit reputedly developed by Kim Il Sung in February 1960 during a visit to the Ch’ngsan-ni Cooperative Farm in South P’yngan Province. In addition to important material incentives, the method has three main components: party and government functionaries must eschew their bureaucratic tendency of only issuing orders and directives; they must mingle with farmers and uncover and solve their problems through comradely guidance; and they should give solid technological guidance to spur efficient and productive achievement.
chaebl: Korean translation of the Japanese word zaibatsu, or business conglomerate. A group of specialized (South Korean) companies with interrelated management servicing each other.
China Proper: Used broadly to mean China within the Great Wall, with its eighteen historic provinces. Divisible into two major, sharply contrasting regions, north China and south China. The dependencies on the north and west--Manchuria (now usually referred to as northeast China), Mongolia, Xizang (Tibet), and Xinjiang or Chinese Turkestan--were known in the imperial era as Outer China.
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC): A quasi-constitutional united front (q.v.) organization that provides an institutional framework for interaction between party and state leaders and representatives of mass groups and democratic parties (q.v.). Members include distinguished scholars, educators, and intellectuals, key representatives of religious and minority nationality groups, and leading members of political parties loyal to the Chinese Communist Party during the anti-Guomindang years. The first CPPCC convened in 1949, the second in 1954, the third in 1959, the fourth in 1964, the fifth in 1978, and the sixth in 1983, the seventh was scheduled for 1988. The CPPCC’s 1949 Common Program served as the law of the land until superseded by the 1954 state constitution.
Choch'ongryn: Abbreviation for Chae Ilbon Chson In Ch’ong Yonhaphoe, literally General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. Members of this Japan-based association tend to be supportive of North Korea’s foreign policy and have kinship and financial ties to North Korea. Known as Chosen Soren in Japanese.
chokpo: The Korean word for a genealogical record, usually that of an entire clan tracing its ancestry to a common ancestor who lived several hundred years ago.
Christian Base Communities (Comunidades Eclesiales de Base--CEBs): Groups consisting of mostly poor Christian lay people through which advocates of liberation theology (q.v.) mainly work. Members of CEBs meet in small groups to reflect on Scripture and discuss the Bible’s meaning in their lives. They are introduced to a radical interpretation of the Bible, one employing Marxist terminology to analyze and condemn the wide disparities between the wealthy elite and the impoverished masses in most underdeveloped countries. This reflection often leads members to organize and improve their living standards through cooperatives and civic- improvement projects.
clericalism: System under which a religious hierarchy exerts political authority. Historically, clericalism was common among smaller polities in Muslim areas of West Africa.
CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls): Loose arrangement of Western governments formed in 1949 to prevent the transfer of military-useful (dual-use) technology from the West to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; the group (whose membership was almost identical to that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, q.v.) operated on the basis of informal agreements covering items having military or nuclear applications.
collective farm (kolkhoz in Russian): Under the communist (q.v.) regime, an agricultural ""cooperative"" where peasants worked collectively on state-owned land under the direction of party-approved plans and leaders and were paid wages based partly on the success of their harvest.
Colombo Plan: Founded in 1951 and known as the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia until it was expanded in 1977 and called the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in Asia and the Pacific. It is an arrangement that permits a developing member country to approach a developed member country for assistance on a one-to- one basis. Assistance may be technical or in the form of capital or commodity aid.
Colombo Plan for Cooperative, Economic, and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific (Colombo Plan): Founded in 1951, originally under a slightly different name, to coordinate and aid development among newly independent countries. Members include nations throughout the Asia-Pacific region (Nepal joined in 1952; Bhutan in 1962). Donor countries include Australia, Britain, Canada, India, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States. The organization’s headquarters are in Colombo, Sri Lanka.; Source: Library of Congress
colon: El Salvador’s monetary unit, divided into 100 centavos. The colon was pegged by the government at US$1=C2.50 until November 1986, when it was officially devalued to US$1=C5 as part of an overall economic austerity package. As of late 1988, there was no parallel exchange market, but dollars could be traded at a higher rate on the black market.
Comecon: Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Sometimes cited as CMEA or CEMA. Members in 1987 included Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, the Mongolian People’s Republic, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Its purpose is to further economic cooperation among members.
Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance): A multilateral economic alliance headquartered in Moscow. Albania was effectively expelled from Comecon in 1962 after the rift in relations between Moscow and Tiranë. Members in 1989 were Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Comecon was created in 1949, ostensibly to promote economic development of member states through cooperation and specialization, but actually to enforce Soviet economic domination of Eastern Europe and to provide a counterweight to the Marshall Plan. Also referred to as CEMA or CMEA.; Source: Library of Congress
Common Market of the South (Mercado Comum do Sul--Mercosul): An organization established on March 26, 1991, when the Treaty of Asunción was signed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay for the purpose of promoting regional economic cooperation. Chile was conspicuously absent because of its insistence that the other four countries first had to lower their tariffs to the Chilean level before Chile could join. Mercosul became operational on January 1, 1995. Chile became an associate member that month and agreed to join as a full member on June 25, 1996. Bolivia was admitted into Mercosul in March 1997. Mercosul is more commonly known by its Spanish acronym, Mercosur (Common Market of the South--Mercado Común del Sur).; Source: Library of Congress
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Created on December 8, 1991, with the signing of the Minsk Agreement by Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. The Alma-Ata Declaration, signed by eleven heads of state on December 21, 1991, expanded membership in the CIS to all other former Soviet republics except Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The CIS is a confederation of former Soviet republics in which ""coordinating bodies"" oversee common interests in the economies, foreign policy, and defense of its members.; Source: Library of Congress
Commonwealth of Nations: Often referred to as the British Commonwealth, the Commonwealth is formally an association of forty-nine sovereign, independent states that acknowledge the British monarch as symbolic head of the association. Commonwealth membership is expressed in cooperation, consultation, mutual assistance, and periodic conferences of national leaders.
Communist Party of Malaya (CPM): Known as the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) until the 1960s. Founded in Singapore in 1930 with a predominantly Chinese membership, the party carried out armed resistance to the Japanese during World War II. From 1948 to 1960, its military arm, the Malayan Peoples Liberation Army, practiced guerrilla warfare in the rural areas of peninsular Malaya with the support of underground organizations in Malaya and Singapore. In the late 1980s, an estimated 500 guerrillas and the party leadership maintained themselves in the jungles of the Malaysian-Thai frontier.
compadrazgo: Literally, copaternity. A system of ritual coparenthood that links parents, children, and godparents in a close social or economic relationship.; Source: Library of Congress
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE): Furthers European security through diplomacy, based on respect for human rights, and a wide variety of policies and commitments of its more than fifty Atlantic, European, and Asian member countries. Founded in August 1975, in Helsinki, when thirty-five nations signed the Final Act, a politically binding declaratory understanding of the democratic principles governing relations among nations, which is better known as the Helsinki Accords (q.v.).; Source: Library of Congress
Constituent Assembly: A deliberative body made up of elected delegates who are charged with the responsibility of drafting a new constitution and, in some instances, electing a new president. Traditionally, after it has completed its work a Constituent Assembly reverts to a Legislative Assembly (traditional title of Salvadoran legislatures), which then serves as the country’s legislative body until the next scheduled elections.
consumer durables: Consumer items or durable goods (q.v.) used for several years, such as automobiles, appliances, or furniture.; Source: Library of Congress