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.

barefoot doctor: Especially during the Cultural Revolution (q.v.), a paramedical worker possessing minimal formal training who provided part-time medical service, primarily in rural areas. Promoted basic hygiene, preventive health care, and family planning and treated common illnesses. Acted as a primary health-care provider at the grass-roots level.
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.
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.
Cultural Revolution: A slogan introduced by Mao Zedong in 1940, noted again by Liu Shaoqi in 1958, and used more frequently in connection with leftist attacks on the ""cultural front"" in late 1965 and early 1966. The expression was used to denote the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a political campaign officially inaugurated in August 1966 to rekindle revolutionary fervor of the masses outside formal party organizations. The Cultural Revolution decade (1966-76) can be divided into three periods: 1966-69, from the militant Red Guard (q.v.) phase to the Ninth National Party Congress; 1969- 71, the period of the zenith and demise of Lin Biao; and 1971-76, the period of Mao’s declining health and the ascendancy of the Gang of Four (q.v.). At the August 1977 Eleventh National Party Congress, the Cultural Revolution was declared officially to have ended with the arrest in October 1976 of the Gang of Four.
Golan Heights: former Syrian territory occupied by Israel in the June 1967 War and formally annexed by Israel in 1981.; Source: Library of Congress
GPC: General People’s Congress. Body combining executive and legislative functions that became the formal supreme organ of government in March 1977.
Group of Eight: A permanent mechanism for consultation and political coordination that succeeded the Contadora Support Group (q.v.) in December 1986. It consisted of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Its second meeting, attended by the presidents of seven member- countries (Panama’s membership was temporarily suspended in February 1988), was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in October 1988. Like the Contadora Support Group, the Group of Eight advocated democracy and a negotiated solution to the Central American insurgencies. Its name was changed in 1990 to the Group of Rio, which had eleven members in 1992. Peru was suspended from the Rio Group following President Alberto K. Fujimori’s self-coup on April 6, 1992, but was formally reinstated in April 1993.
informal economy: Unofficial or underground sector of economic activity beyond government regulation and taxation, to include street vendors, some domestic servants, and unskilled workers in urban areas.; Source: Library of Congress
informal sector: Unofficial sector of underground economic activity. In Bolivia, consisted principally of coca cultivation, cocaine trafficking, and contraband, employing two-thirds of the work force.; Source: Library of Congress
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1957 to assist member nations with the development and application of atomic energy for peaceful uses and to foster and monitor a universal standard of nuclear safeguards. Through on-site inspections and monitoring, the IAEA ensures that fissile and related nuclear material, equipment, information, and services are not used to produce nuclear weapons as provided for in bilateral nuclear safeguard agreements between the IAEA and individual member nations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), formally the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD): Formal name for the World Bank Group (q.v.) which was conceived at the Bretton Woods Conference on July 22, 1944, and began operations in June 1946. Its primary purpose is to provide technical assistance and loans at market-related rates of interest to developing countries at more advanced stages of development.; Source: Library of Congress
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.
League of Nations: An international organization whose covenant arose out of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. It was created for the purpose of preserving international peace and security and promoting disarmament by obligating nations to submit their conflicts to arbitration, judicial settlement, or to the League Council for consid-eration. By not signing the Treaty of Versailles, the United States refused to join. Although the fifty-three-member body considered sixty-six disputes and conflicts between 1920 and 1939, it proved ineffective against German, Italian, Japanese, and Soviet aggression in the 1930s. Formally disbanded in April 1946, its functions were transferred to the United Nations.; Source: Library of Congress
London Club: An informal group of commercial banks that come together to negotiate a debt rescheduling agreement with a country. The group has two committees, an economics committee that develops economic data projections and a negotiating committee. Committee members usually come from the five principal banks that hold the largest amounts of a country’s debt.; Source: Library of Congress
mutawwiin: Literally, those who volunteer or obey; sometimes known by popular name of Committees for Public Morality, or more formally, as the Committees for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Paris Club: The informal name for a consortium of Western creditor countries (Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States) that have made loans or have guaranteed export credits to developing nations and that meet in Paris to discuss borrowers’ ability to repay debts. Paris Club deliberations often result in the tendering of emergency loans to countries in economic difficulty or in the rescheduling of debts. Formed in October 1962, the organization has no formal or institutional existence. Its secretariat is run by the French treasury. It has a close relationship with the International Monetary Fund (q.v.), to which all of its members except Switzerland belong, as well as with the World Bank (q.v.) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Paris Club is also known as the Group of Ten (G-10).; Source: Library of Congress
Peronism: An eclectic Argentine political movement formed in 1945-46 to support the successful presidential candidacy of Juan Domingo Perón. The movement later splintered, with left-wingers forming the Montoneros urban guerrilla group. Nevertheless, the fractious movement survived Perón’s death in 1974 and made a good showing in the congressional elections of 1986. The political, economic, and social ideology of Peronism was formally labelled Justicialismo, meaning social justice, in 1949. It combines nationalism, social democracy, loyalty to the memory of Perón, and Personalismo, which is the dominance of a nation’s political life by an individual, often a charismatic personality.
residencia: A formal inquiry conducted at the end of a colonial official’s term of office.
Russian Empire: Successor state to Muscovy. Formally proclaimed by Tsar Peter the Great in 1721 and significantly expanded during the reign of Catherine II, becoming a major multinational state. The empire’s political structure collapsed with the revolution of February 1917, but most of its territory was included in the Soviet Union, which was established in 1922.
Viet Cong: Contraction of the term Viet Nam Cong San (Vietnamese communists), the name applied by the governments of the United States and South Vietnam to the communist insurgents in rebellion against the latter government, beginning around 1957. The Vietnamese communists never used the term themselves, but referred to their movement as the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (also known as the National Liberation Front), formally inaugurated in December 1960.
Warsaw Pact: Informal name for the Warsaw Treaty Organization, a mutual defense organization founded in 1955. Included the Soviet Union, Albania (which withdrew in 1968), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, and Romania. The Warsaw Pact enabled the Soviet Union to station troops in the countries of Eastern Europe to oppose the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO--q.v.). The pact was the basis for the invasions of Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). Disbanded in July 1991.; Source: Library of Congress
Warsaw Treaty Organization: Formal name for Warsaw Pact. Political-military alliance founded by the Soviet Union in 1955 as a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Albania, an original member, stopped participating in Warsaw Pact activities in 1962 and withdrew in 1968. Members in 1991 included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Before it was formally dissolved in April 1991, the Warsaw Pact served as the Soviet Union’s primary mechanism for keeping political and military control over Eastern Europe.; Source: Library of Congress
World Zionist Organization (WZO): Founded in August 1897 at the First Zionist Congress called by Theodor Herzl at Basel, Switzerland. The movement, named after Mount Zion in Jerusalem, was designed to establish in Palestine a national home for Jews scattered throughout the world. Since 1948 its efforts have been devoted primarily to promoting unity of the Jewish people and raising funds. In 1929 it established the Jewish Agency (q.v.). Until 1960 its formal name was Zionist Organization, but word World added in new constitution.; Source: Library of Congress