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.

""Moldavian"" (moldavskiy in Russian): Term used by the Soviet government to describe the language and nationality of the ethnic Romanians (q.v.) in Bessarabia (q.v.). Joseph V. Stalin claimed that their language and nationality were different and distinct from the language and nationality of the ethnic Romanians in Romania as a justification for creating the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1940. In actuality, the ""Moldavian"" language is a dialect of Romanian. Under the Soviet regime, ""Moldavia"" was used as the short form for the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.; Source: Library of Congress
Age Structure: Age Structure is the distribution of the population according to age. The age structure of a population affects a nation’s key socioeconomic issues. Countries with young populations (high percentage under age 15) need to invest more in schools, while countries with older populations (high percentage ages 65 and over) need to invest more in the health sector. The age structure can also be used to help predict potential political issues. For example, the rapid growth of a young adult population unable to find employment can lead to unrest.
Andean Initiative (or Andean Strategy): At the February 1990 Cartagena (Colombia) Drug Summit, the presidents of Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and the United States agreed to mount a regional attack on the drug trade. Their governments thereby qualified for United States counternarcotics assistance. After taking office in July 1990, President Alberto K. Fujimori proposed a comprehensive counternarcotics effort, to include narcotic law enforcement, demand reduction, public diplomacy, and economic development. However, progress in organizing this strategy was hindered by police/military rivalries and corruption. Furthermore, in late September 1990 Fujimori turned down US$35.9 million in authorized FY1990 United States military assistance after the United States failed to meet his concerns about the military focus of its antidrug strategy in Peru. After extensive talks, Fujimori signed the Peru-United States umbrella agreement on drug control and economic assistance on May 14, 1991, establishing a political understanding at the highest level and serving as a framework for a coordinated, comprehensive program to dismantle the drug trade in Peru with assistance with the United States, other developed countries, and international organizations. It addresses the role of the police and military in counternarcotics activities, alternative econmic assistance, crop substitution, and access to establishing legitimate economies versus the cultivation and illicit processing of coca leaf into cocaine products.
apartheid: ""Separateness,"" (Afrikaans, Dutch); policy implemented by National Party government (1948-94) to maintain separate development of government-demarcated racial groups; also referred to as ""separate development,"" and later ""multinational development""; abolished by Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1993.
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.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Founded in 1967 for the purpose of promoting regional stability, economic development, and cultural exchange. ASEAN’s membership includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. India is a ""dialogue partner"" along with Austria, Canada, China, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Russia, and the United States.
Backward Classes: Citizens of India otherwise defined as members of Scheduled Castes (q.v.), Scheduled Tribes (q.v.), and other low-ranking and disadvantaged groups (sometimes referred to as Other Backward Classes). Discrimination against the Backward Classes is prohibited by Article 15 of the Indian constitution. The Backward Classes reportedly constitute an estimated 52 percent of India’s population. The Mandal Commission (q.v.) identified 3,743 Backward Classes.
Bahasa Indonesia: The Indonesian national language, also known as Indonesian; an Austronesian language reported to be modelled on Riau Malay and 80 percent cognate with Standard Malay.
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.
Bangladesh National Party: Political party of Ziaur Rahman (Zia). Founded in 1978 and became majority party during Zia’s presidency.; Source: Library of Congress
bani: Arabic for a tribe, people, or nation; plural of ibn, son of a person
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.
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.
boat people: Refugees who fled Vietnam by sea after 1975. Many fell victim to pirate attacks in the Gulf of Thailand, drowned, or endured starvation and dehydration as a result of their escape in ill- equipped and undersized vessels. Those who reached safety in neighboring Southeast Asian countries were accorded temporary asylum in refugee camps while awaiting permanent resettlement in industrialized Western nations willing to accept them.
Bretton Woods System: A structure of fixed exchange rates developed at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which established the International Monetary Fund (q.v.) and the World Bank (q.v.). The Bretton Woods System was in effect until 1971.
Carta di Lavoro: This electoral model involves ""functional representation"" by corporate groups; that is, instead of having direct elections for the national legislature by districts or by proportional representation, elections are indirect within corporate management and labor unions.; Source: Library of Congress
CCN: Crusada Civilista Nacional (National Civic Crusade). Business-led coalition that organized popular civic opposition to government and FDP (q.v.) in 1987 demonstrations and unrest.
Chilean peso: (Ch$) Chile’s currency. Replaced escudo on September 29, 1975, at a rate of 1,000 escudos per peso. Peso notes are for 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 pesos; coins are for 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100 pesos. Official exchange rate of Chilean peso was pegged to United States dollar until July 3, 1992, at a rate adjusted at daily intervals and determined by monthly rates of national and world inflation. On January 26, 1992, the Central Bank (q.v.) revalued the peso, reducing the official dollar exchange rate by 5 percent, which meant it dropped from 395 to 375 pesos. On July 3, 1992, the Central Bank, in a move designed to halt currency speculation, announced the peso would no longer be measured exclusively against the United States currency, but rather would use a basket of the dollar, the German mark, and the Japanese yen in a 50-30-20 ratio.
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.
chuch'e, or juche: Political ideology promulgated by Kim Il Sung. The application of Marxism-Leninism to the North Korean experience based on autonomy and self-reliance popularized since 1955 as an official guideline for independence in politics, economics, national defense, and foreign policy.
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
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
Cominform (Commmunist Information Bureau): An international communist organization (1947-56) including communist parties of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia (expelled in 1948). Formed as a tool of Soviet foreign policy, it issued propaganda advocating international communist solidarity.; Source: Library of Congress
Comintern: Short form for Communist International or the Third International, which was founded in Moscow in 1919 to coordinate the world communist movement. Officially disbanded in 1943, the Comintern was revived as the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) from 1947 to 1956.
Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin: Established in 1957 under the sponsorship of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the Committee aims to develop water resources in the lower Mekong basin through improvements in hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood control, watershed management, and navigation. Its membership is limited to Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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 International: Also called the Comintern or Third International, it was founded in Moscow in 1919 to coordinate the world communist movement. Officially disbanded in 1943, the Comintern was replaced from 1947 to 1954 by the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau), in which only the Soviet and the ruling East European communist parties (except for Yugoslavia, which was expelled in 1948) and the French and the Italian communist parties were represented. The Cominform was dissolved in 1956.
Communist International (Comintern): An international organization of communist parties founded by Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) leader Vladimir I. Lenin in 1919. Initially, it attempted to control the international socialist movement and to foment world revolution; later, it also became an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. The Comintern was dissolved by Soviet leader Joseph V. Stalin in 1943 as a conciliatory measure toward his Western allies.
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
Congress: See Indian National Congress.
Contra: Short form of contrarevolucionario (counterrevolutionary). Member of the Nicaraguan Resistance, an armed resistance movement in the 1980s supported by the United States and fighting against the national Sandinista government.
Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty: An agreement signed in 1990 by members of the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO--q.v.) to establish parity in conventional weapons between the two organizations from the Atlantic to the Urals. Included a strict system of inspections and information exchange. In 1995 Russia requested exemptions for forces stationed in the Caucasus region, and substantial changes were negotiated by the thirty signatory nations in 1997.
coronelismo: Derives from the honorary title of colonel (coronel; pl., coroneis) in the National Guard that was customarily conferred on a locally dominant political boss, usually a substantial landowner or local justice of the peace. The term eventually became applied to local strongmen or political bosses, especially in rural areas and particularly in poorer Northeastern states. Coronelismo thus was a classic boss system under which control of patronage and minor funds was centralized in the coronel, who would dispense favors in return for political loyalty.; Source: Library of Congress
corporatist: An hierarchical conception of society that assigns to elites the guiding roles of maintaining social harmony and identifying the general will of the nation.
coupon: Generic term for bank-issued national currency certificates of Georgia, introduced in early 1993. After introduction, value declined rapidly; in October 1993, the exchange rate was approximately 42,000 coupons per US$1.
cruzeiro (Cr$): The old national currency, consisting of 100 centavos, which replaced the mil-reis on November 1, 1942. The cruzeiro novo was created on February 8, 1967, to replace the cruzeiro. After August 1968, the cruzeiro novo was adjusted by small amounts at frequent intervals, often every week or two. On May 15, 1970, the currency reverted to the cruzeiro, which remained in effect until 1986 when it was replaced by the cruzado (q.v.). The cruzeiro was reinstituted on March 16, 1990.; Source: Library of Congress
cruzeiro real (CR$): On August 1, 1993, the cruzeiro real, equal to 1,000 cruzeiros, was introduced, as the national currency. It was replaced on July 1, 1994, by the real (q.v.).; Source: Library of Congress
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.
Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (CSFR): official name of the former Czechoslovakia, adopted in December 1990 to recognize the two ethnic components of that country. (Czechoslovakia was still used as the short form designation after that date.) In January 1993, divided into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which retained some economic and security ties.
democratic parties: Eight political parties that have been loyal to the communist government since 1949. They are China Association for Promoting Democracy, China Democratic League, China Democratic National Construction Association, China Zhi Gong Dang (Party for Public Interest), Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, Jiusan (September Third) Society, Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, and Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League.
DENI: Departamento Nacional de Investigaciones (National Department of Investigations). Undercover secret police.
dependency analysis: A theory that seeks to explain the continuing problems of Latin American underdevelopment and political conflict by positing the existence of an imperialistic, exploitative relationship between the industrialized countries and the developing nations of Latin America and other developing regions.
dependency theory: A theory that seeks to explain the continuing problems of Latin American underdevelopment and political conflict by positing the existence of an imperialistic, exploitative relationship between the industrialized countries and the developing nations of Latin America and other developing regions.; Source: Library of Congress
deutsche mark (DM): The national currency unit, consisting of 100 pfennigs. The value of the deutsche mark has fluctuated with international monetary developments--generally upward since its introduction in the currency reform of 1948. The number of deutsche marks per US$1 averaged 4.20 in 1950, 4.20 in 1960, 4.00 in 1965, 3.65 in 1970, 2.62 in 1975, 1.96 in 1980, 2.94 in 1985, 1.62 in 1990, 1.56 in 1992, 1.65 in 1993, 1.64 in 1994, and 1.43 in 1995.
Diet: The national legislature. From 1890 to 1947, known as the Imperial Diet (in Japanese, Teikoku Gikai) with an appointed House of Peers and elected House of Representatives. Since 1947 has been known as the National Diet, or Diet (in Japanese, Kokkai), with a House of Councillors and House of Representatives, both of which are elected. The word ""diet"" comes from the Latin dies (day), a reference to the period of time for which a court or assembly met. The word has been used as the English name for the Japanese legislature since 1890.
dinar: Basic currency unit consisting of 1,000 fils; created in 1950 as replacement for the Palestinian pound. Dinar’s value was established at parity with the British pound sterling, or a value of US$2.80 equal to JD1. Jordan, as a member of the sterling area, maintained parity with the British pound until 1967 when the British devalued their currency. Jordan did not follow the pound, retaining the dinar at US$2.80 equal to JD1 through 1972. When United States currency was devalued in 1973, the dinar was unlinked from the dollar, since which time the rate has fluctuated. Beginning in February 1975, the dinar was pegged to the special drawing right (SDR--q.v.). According to International Monetary Fund (IMF--q.v.) data, the average conversion rate of the dinar for trade and other purposes was US$3.04 in 1987, US$2.1 in 1988, and US$1.54 in 1989.
Divided Zone: Originally a shared area between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Each country annexed its half of the zone in 1966 but continued to respect the other country’s right to the national resources in the whole zone.
dram: National currency of Armenia, officially established for use concurrent with the Russian ruble in November 1993, to become single official currency in early 1994. A second national unit, the luma (100 to the dram), was introduced in February 1994.; Source: Library of Congress