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GLOSSARY
United Kingdom
backbenchers: Members of Parliament who do not have a position in government.
Bill of Rights (1689): Document limiting the power of the monarchy to suspend Parliament and raise taxes without parliamentary approval.
Tony Blair: Prime minister of Great Britain since 1997.
Cabinet: Body of ministers who serve alongside the prime minister and preside over the various government departments.
Celtic fringe: Ireland, Scotland, and Wales—areas of the United Kingdom historically dominated by Celtic peoples and never conquered by the Angles and Saxons.
Channel Tunnel: Railway under the English Channel connecting Great Britain and France
collective responsibility: Idea that cabinet members must show unified support for policy or step down from their office.
collectivist consensus: Post–World War II agreement between the Labour and Conservative Parties to expand the welfare state and nationalize parts of industry.
common law: Unwritten law based on historical precedent and interpretation over time.
Commonwealth: Body composed of the United Kingdom and those former British colonies that still consider the British monarch their head of state.
Confederation of British Industry (CBI): National organization representing business interests.
Conservatives (Tories): Members of the Conservative Party.
Conservative Party: Main liberal party in Britain.
constitutional monarchy: Monarchy whose powers are limited by a constitution.
Crown: Shorthand term for the institution of the monarchy.
Fabianism: Moderate nineteenth-century social democratic ideology that favored working within the parliamentary system to bring about change.
Feudalism: Former political system whereby landed elites controlled people as subjects, tying them to the land and utilizing their labor and production.
Good Friday Agreement (1998): Accord between the governments of the United Kingdom and the republic of Ireland and the dominant political factions in Northern Ireland, designed to bring an end to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
Great Britain (also called Britain): Term collectively describing the nations of England, Scotland, and Wales.
Her Majesty's government: Term for the prime minister and the cabinet.
Hereditary Peers: Members of the House of Lords who, until 1999, were able to gain seats by inheritance as members of the aristocracy.
House of Commons: Lower and more powerful house of Parliament.
House of Lords: Upper house of Parliament, whose members are not elected.
Labour Party: Main social democratic party in the United Kingdom.
law lords: Members of the House of Lords who are appointed to serve as an upper court for legal appeals.
Liberals (Whigs): Anti-monarchist British political party of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, displaced by the Labour Party.
life peers: Distinguished citizens appointed to the House of Lords by recommendation of the prime minister.
Magna Carta (1215): Document that first limited powers of the English monarchy.
Majoritarian: System of government that concentrates power in the hands of those with the majority of seats in Parliament.
member of Parliament (MP): Elected member of the House of Commons, the lower house of the legislature.
neo-liberals: Members of the Conservative Party who strongly embraced liberal ideology following the end of the collectivist consensus.
Northern Ireland: Portion of Ireland that remained under British control following the establishment of the republic of Ireland in 1921.
old-boy networks: Connections created by socialization through elite academic and other institutions.
Parliament: The national legislature of the United Kingdom.
prime minister: United Kingdom’s top executive office, elected by members of the House of Commons.
primogeniture: Right of inheritance held by a oldest son; in the United Kingdom, the system that determines succession to the throne (unless there are no sons).
quangos (quasi-autonomous, nongovernmental organizations): Policy advisory boards appointed by a government that bring government officials and affected interest groups together to help develop policies.
Reform Act: Nineteenth-century legislation that gradually enfranchised much of the British population.
Speaker of the House: Member of Parliament charged with overseeing and managing the actions and debate of the House of Commons.
Margaret Thatcher: Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990.
Third Way: Attempt by the Labour Party to create a balance between liberal and social democratic ideologies during the 1990s./p>
Trades Union Congress (TUC): Main confederation of trade unions in the United Kingdom historically connected to the Labour Party.
Ulster: Protestant term for Northern Ireland.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK): Term for the political entity that comprises Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
vote of no confidence: Vote by members of the House of Commons to remove the prime minister
welfare state: System whereby public social goods, such as health care and unemployment insurance, re created and supported by the state.
Japan
administrative guidance: Informal bureaucratic directives in Japan designed to influence business.
amakudari ("descent from heaven"): Practice in which senior Japanese bureaucrats take prominent positions in business or politics.
Article 9: Clause of Japan’s 11947 constitution renouncing the country’s right to wage war.
capitalist developmental state: Japan’s mercantilist model of capitalist development, which emphasizes state guidance of business and the market.
daimyo: Territorial lords who governed during the era of Japanese feudalism.
Diet: Japan’s bicameral parliament.
factions: Powerful "mini-parties"formed within the Liberal Democratic Party and other Japanese political parties.
flying geese: Regional economic division of labor featuring Japan as the "lead goose,"followed by tiers of increasingly less-developed Asian economies.
gaiatsu: "foreign pressure"that has been exerted on Japan and has served as an impetus for domestic revolution or reform.
Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere: Euphemism for the bloc of Asian nations that constituted Japan’s World War II empire.
Hosokawa Morihiro: Japanese prime minister (1993–1994) who led the first of two non-LDP governing coalitions and won passage of key electoral reforms in 1994.
House of Councillors: The upper (weaker) house of the Japanese parliament.
House of Representatives: The lower (more powerful) house of the Japanese parliament.
industrial policy: Formal and informal economic measures formulated and implemented by Japan’s elite economic bureaucracy.
iron triangle: Formal and informal ties linking Japan’s elite bureaucrats, leading politicians, and business leaders.
Keidanren ("Federation of Economic Organizations"): Japan’s most influential business association, representing the interests of large corporations.
keiretsu: Japanese business conglomerates.
koenkai: local political support organizations for Japanese politicians.
Junichiro Koizumi: Current Japanese prime minister, a populist, now serving his second term.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP): Japan’s dominant political party, from its formation in 1955 to the present.
"lifetime"employment: Promise of permanent employment offered until recently to many of Japan’s white-collar workers.
Meiji oligarchs: The modernizing former samurai officials who led Japan’s Meiji Restoration in the late nineteenth century.
Meiji Restoration: Period of Japan’s rapid political and economic modernization, from 1867 to 1868.
money politics: Extensive political corruption in Japan involving corporate donations in exchange for political favors.
Nokyo (Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives): Japan’s well-organized and politically influential agricultural lobby.
pork-barrel: Term describing the political maneuvering designed to bring lucrative government contracts or other government spending to a legislator's district and constituents.
RENGO (Japanese Trade Union Confederation): Japan’s major labor organization.
rich country, strong military: Mercantilist slogan adopted by Japan’s late-nineteenth century authoritarian leaders, who were determined to modernize Japan rapidly.
sakoku ("closed country"): Feudal Japan’s national policy of seclusion.
samurai: Feudal Japan’s elite ruling warrior class.
sarariman ("salary man"): Japan’s midlevel white-collar male workers.
Self-Defense Force: Japan’s armed forces, which are prohibited by Article 9 of the constitution from engaging in offensive operations.
shogun: feudal Japan’s political leader, who ruled in the name of the emperor.
Supreme Commander of Allied Powers: Title given to General Douglas MacArthur (and his staff) as overseer of the Japanese occupation.
Taisho democracy: Era of genuine but ultimately failed liberal democracy in 1920s Japan.
Tanaka Kakuei: Prime minister (1972–1974) and the most powerful (and perhaps most corrupt) of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party kingmakers.
Tokugawa: Last and most enduring of Japan’s feudal dynasties, lasting from 1603 to 1868.
Yoshida Shigeru: Prime minister (1946–1954) and former bureaucrat who governed Japan during the crucial occupation and postoccupation years.
zaibatsu: Japan’s huge pre–World War II industrial conglomerates.
Zombies: "walking-dead"corporations that are technically solvent but are heavily, and in some cases hopelessly, in debt.
Mexico
Bracero program: World War II program that allowed millions of Mexicans to work temporarily in the United States.
caciques: Military strongmen who generally controlled local politics in nineteenth-century Mexico.
camarillas: Vast informal networks of personal loyalty that operate as powerful political cliques.
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas: PRI leader who broke with the party in the 1980s and led the leftist Partido de la Revolución Democrática in several presidential elections.
Lázaro Cárdenas: Mexican president (1934–1940) who implemented a radical program of land reform and nationalized Mexican oil companies.
Venustiano Carranza: Mexican revolutionary leader who ended the revolution's violence and defeated the more radical challenges of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.
caudillos: National military strongmen who dominated Mexican politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Chamber of Deputies (Camara Federal de Diputados): Lower house of Mexico's legislature.
Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM): Mexico's dominant trade-union confederation, a main pillar of the PRI's authoritarian regime.
Congress (Congreso de la Union): Mexico's bicameral legislature.
constitution of 1917: Document established by the Mexican Revolution that continues to regulate Mexico's political regime.
Hernán Cortés: Primary Spanish conqueror of Mexico.
criollos: Mexican-born descendants of colonial Spaniards.
Cuauhtémoc: Aztec military leader defeated by the Spanish conquerors.
Porfirio Díaz: Mexican dictator (1876–1910) who was deposed by the Mexican Revolution.
Federal District of Mexico City: Similar to the U.S. District of Columbia, a powerful Mexican district that includes the capital city and most of its population.
Federal Electoral Institute: Independent agency that regulates elections in Mexico, created in 1996 to end decades of electoral fraud.
Vicente Fox Quesada: Mexico's current president (since 2000) and the first non-PRI president in over seven decades.
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA): U.S. legislation passed in 1986 that toughened immigration laws and granted amnesty to many longtime undocumented workers.
informal sector: Sector of the economy that is not regulated or taxed by the state.
Benito Juárez: Nineteenth-century Mexican president who is today considered an early proponent of a modern, secular, democratic Mexico.
Francisco Labastida: First-ever PRI candidate to lose a presidential election, defeated in 2000 by Vicente Fox of the PAN.
latifundistas: Owners of latifundia (huge tracts of land).
Antonio López de Santa Ana: Mexico's first great caudillo, who dominated national politics for three decades in the mid–nineteenth century.
José López Portillo: Mexican president (1976—1982) who increased the role of the state in the economy and nationalized Mexico's banking system in an attempt to avert a national economic crisis.
Francisco Madero: Landowner and initial leader of the Mexican Revolution, who sought moderate democratic reform.
maquiladoras: Factories that import materials or parts to make goods that are then exported.
Maya: Mexico's largest indigenous group, concentrated in the south of the country.
mestizos: Mexicans of mixed European and indigenous ancestry, who make up the vast majority of Mexico's population.
Mexican-American War (1846–1848): Conflict between Mexico and the United States in which the United States gained one third of Mexico’s territory.
Mexican miracle: The spectacular economic growth in Mexico from the 1940s to about 1980.
Mexican Revolution (1910–1917): The bloody conflict in Mexico that established the long-lived PRI regime.
municipios: county-level governments in Mexican states.
Nahuatl: Mexico's second-largest indigenous group, concentrated in the central part of the country.
National Union of Workers (UNT): Trade union confederation formed in the 1990s to compete with the PRI-dominated CTM.
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): Free-trade agreement, signed in 1994, between Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
Partido Acción Nacional (PAN): Conservative Catholic political party that until 2000 was the main opposition to the PRI.
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI): Political party that emerged from the Mexican Revolution to preside over an authoritarian regime that lasted until 2000.
patron-client relationships: System in which powerful government officials deliver state services and access to power in exchange for the delivery of political support.
Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos): Mexico's powerful state-owned oil monopoly.
political efficacy: Belief that one can make a difference in politics.
San Andres Peace Accords: 1996 accord that promised to end the Zapatista rebel uprising but was never implemented by the PRI government.
Secretariat of Government: Top cabinet post that controls internal political affairs and under the PRI was often a stepping-stone to the presidency.
Secretariat of the Treasury: Mexico's most powerful economic cabinet minister.
Senate (Camara de Senadores): Upper house of Mexico's legislature.
Supreme Court (Suprema Corte de Justicia Nacional): Mexico's highest court.
Televisa: Mexico's largest media conglomerate, which for decades enjoyed a close relationship with the PRI.
Francisco (Pancho) Villa: Northern peasant leader of the Mexican Revolution who, together with Emiliano Zapata, advocated a more radical socioeconomic agenda.
War of Independence (1810–1821): Bloody eleven-year conflict that resulted in Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821.
War of the Castes: Massive nineteenth-century uprising of Mexico's indigenous population against the Mexican state.
Emiliano Zapata: Southern peasant leader of the Mexican Revolution most closely associated with radical land reform.
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN): Largely Mayan rebel group that staged an uprising in 1994, demanding political reform and greater rights for Mexico's indigenous peoples.
Ernesto Zedillo: Mexican president (1994—2000) who implemented political reforms that paved the way for fair elections in 2000.
Russia
asymmetric federalism: System in which power is devolved unequally across a country and its constituent regions, often as a result of specific laws negotiated between the regions and the central government.
Caucasus: Region of southwestern Russia, near the Black Sea and Turkey, inhabited by a diverse mixture of non-Slavic peoples who have distinct languages and customs and who are predominantly Muslin rather than adherents of Orthodox Christianity.
Chechnya: Largely Muslin republic in the Caucasus, in southwestern Russia, that has been a source of military conflict since 1991.
Cheka: Soviet secret police created by Lenin; precursor to the KGB.
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Loose integrationist body that incorporates most of the former Soviet republics.
czar: Russian word for "emperor"(from the Latin Word Caesar).
Duma: Lower house of the Russian legislature.
Federal Security Bureau: Russian intelligence agency, successor to the KGB.
Federation Council: Upper house of the Russian legislature.
Glasnost (literally, "openness"): policy of political liberalization implemented in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
insider privatization: Process in Russia in which the former directors of state-owned businesses, the nomenklatura, were able to acquire the largest shares of those businesses.
KGB (Committee for State Security): Soviet secret-police agency charged with gathering domestic and foreign intelligence.
Kremlin: Eleventh-century fortress in the heart of Moscow that historically has been the seat of Russian state power.
nomenklatura: term that refers to the politically sensitive or influential jobs in the state, society, or economy, and the Communist party appointees who staff them.
oligarchs: Russians who became rich in the aftermath of communism, often through their close ties to the government, and who are noted for their control of large segments of the Russian economy (including the media), and for the accusations of corruption surrounding their rise to power.
Orthodox Christianity: Variant of Christianity separate from Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, originally centered in Constantinople (now roughly modern-day Istanbul).
parties of power: Russian political parties that are created by political elites to support their political aspirations and typically lack any ideological orientation.
perestroika (literally, "restructuring"): policy of economic liberalization implemented in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Politburo: Top policy-making and executive body of the Communist Party.
Rus: Origin of the name Russia, thought by some to refer to the Vikings who settled the region in the ninth century c.e.
shock therapy: Process of rapid marketization.
Soviets: Name given to the workers’ councils that sprang up in 1917, after the Russian Revolution.
South Africa
African National Congress (ANC): South Africa's largest political party and long the major organization opposing apartheid.
African Union (AU): Organization founded in 2002 to foster contintental integration and diplomacy, the successor to the Organisation of African Unity.
Afrikaans: The language spoken by the descendants of the Dutch, French, and German settlers who first colonized Sotuh Africa.
Afrikaners: Descendants of the Dutch, French, and German colonists who arrived in South Africa in the seventeenth century.
apartheid: (literally, "separateness") the term describing the racist policies imposed in South Africa by white Afrikaners from 1948 to 1994.
Bantustans: So-called homelands that were created for blacks by the apartheid regime and were, dissolved in 1994 by the ANC government.
Boer republics: Afrikaner states established in the interior of South Africa during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Boer War: (1899–1902) war fought between the British and the Afrikaners over the Boer republics, won by the British but at a very high cost.
Boers: (literally, Afrikaans for "farmer,") term describing all Afrikaners.
coloured: Term describing South Africans of mixed race.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU): South Africa's main labor union confederation, a strongly ally of the ANC but increasingly unhappy with ANC economic policy.
F.W. De Klerk: Last apartheid-era president (serving from 1990 to 1994) who with Nelson Mandela successfully negotiated South Africa's transition to democracy.
Democratic Alliance: Main opposition to the ANC, an advocate of minority rights and individual freedoms.
Dutch Reformed Church: Conservative Afrikaner church that supported apartheid.
Great Trek: Exodus of Afrikaners into South Africa's interior in 1835 to escape British rule.
Group Areas Act: 1950 law that formally segregated South Africans along racial lines.
Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR): ANC program that firmly endorses neo-liberal market reforms while pledging to increase spending.
Inkatha Freedom Party: (IFP): Zulu-based South African political party.
Paul Kruger (1825–1904):Afrikaner nationalist and president of Transvaal state.
Nelson Mandela: Longtime leader of ANC with F. W. de Klerk successfully negotiated South Africa’s transition to democracy and who served, from 1994 to 1999, as South Africa’s first democratically elected president.
Thabo Mbeki: ANC leader and South Africa's president since 1999
National Party (NP): Afrikaner party that governed South Africa during apartheid.
New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD): Program designed to link aid to Africa with commitments to the rule of law and democracy, as certified by the African Union.
Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP): Plan of the first ANC to redistribute wealth and meet the basic needs of South Africans living in poverty.
Southern African Development Community (SADC): Thirteen-member body concerned with regional economic integration and cooperation in southern Africa.
Soweto: Large township outside Johannesburg created when blacks were expelled from the city.
state-owned enterprises (SOEs): Government-owned business, legacy of apartheid's heavily statist economy.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Commission active from 1995 to 1998 and led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that was charged with uncovering the truth about human rights abuses during apartheid.
Desmond Tutu: Black South African religious leader and anti-apartheid activist; chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Union of South Africa: Independent republic of Afrikaners and former British colonists, founded in 1910 in the aftermath of the Boer War.
United Democratic Front (UDF): Coalition of black and white anti-apartheid forces formed in 1983 to promote a regime change.
Hendrik Verwoerd: Leading ideologue and architect of apartheid and prime minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966.
voortrekkers: Afrikaner pioneers who took part in the Great Trek.
China
Chinese Communist Party (CCP): China's ruling political party since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949
Communist party-state: political system in which a ruling communist party holds all political authority over both the state and society
Confucianism: social and ethical teachings of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.)
Cultural Revolution: decade of social upheaval and political struggle in China from 1966 until Mao Zedong's death in 1976
Danwei system: "unit" system of communist party control assigning all Chinese a lifetime affiliation with a specific industrial, agricultural, or bureaucratic work unit
Deng Xiaoping: China's paramount leader from the late 1970s until his death in 1997
Falun Gong: meditative martial arts movement founded in 1992 but banned by Chinese authorities in 1999
Floating population: tens of millions of low-wage migrant laborers in China with no legal residency beyond their home villages and no authorized access to social services
Great Leap Forward: failed Chinese campaign of rapid industrialization and agricultural collectivization during the late 1950s that resulted in millions of deaths
Household responsibility system: Deng Xiaoping's initial privatization of Chinese agriculture in the early 1980s
Hu Jintao: China's current political leader, concurrently holding the offices of General Secretary of the CCP since 2002 and President of the PRC since 2003
Hundred Flowers Campaign: short-lived liberalization campaign launched in China in 1956
Iron rice bowl: Mao Zedong's promise of permanent employment and cradle-to-grave social services for all citizens of China
Jiang Zemin: successor to Deng Xiaoping as de facto ruler of China from 1997 until relinquishing his party and government posts in 2002 and 2003 respectively
Kuomintang (KMT): Nationalist Party that governed China until it was forced to flee to Taiwan when defeated by the CCP in 1949
Long March: heroic retreat of the CCP in the mid-1930s that forged the Party's enduring support from the Chinese peasantry
Mao Zedong: chairman of the CCP and ruler of China from 1949 until his death in 1976
May Fourth Movement: Protest led by Chinese intellectuals in 1919 calling for China's radical reform and modernization, prompted by opposition to the Treaty of Versailles
National Party Congress: CCP's legislative body parallel to the government's National People's Congress
National People's Congress: China's unicameral and largely powerless legislature
Nomenklatura: CCP's lists of politically important and sensitive positions and leaders used to control appointments and dismissals within the Communist party-state.
"One country, two systems": Chinese-British agreement to guarantee Hong Kong extensive autonomy for a transitional period of fifty years after its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997
People's Liberation Army (PLA): China's military and an important political actor at key periods during 20th-century Chinese history
Red Guard: radical students and other youth who devotedly supported Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution
Reds vs. Experts: vying for political influence and favor in setting China's course of development between politically indoctrinated party cadres and those with economic training
Reform and Opening: China's dramatic and largely successful policies of economic (though not political) liberalization beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present
Sun Yat-sen: founder of the KMT and President of China after the 1911 revolution
Three Gorges Dam project: world's largest hydroelectric dam spanning China's Yangtze River
Tiananmen Square: China's "Gate of Heavenly Peace" plaza in the center of Beijing that was the site of political protests and violent crackdown in 1989.
Wen Jiabao: current premier of China
Brazil
abertura: Term describing the gradual "opening"of Brazil to democratic reform, beginning in the mid-1970s.
alliance of coffee and cream: Term describing the domination of early-twentieth-century politics by oligarchs from Brazil’s dairy- and coffee-producing regions.
Amazon basin: Territory, largely made up of rain forest, comprising about half of Brazil’s landmass.
Belindia: Term describing Brazil’s combination of Belgium’s industrial might and India’s poverty and inequality.
Brasília: Brazil’s capital since 1960, a planned, futuristic city built in the interior to promote migration from the coast.
bureaucratic authoritarian: Term describing the conservative, anti-communist, and anti-democratic military regimes that dominated Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.
caboclo: Term describing Brazilians of mixed indigenous and European ancestry.
Chamber of Deputies (Camara dos Deputados): Name of the lower house of the Brazilian legislature.
Christian base communities: Roman Catholic study groups that advocated political change at the local level.
coroneis: (literally, "colonels") term for local political bosses in Brazil.
donatarios: Individuals given huge tracts of land by the Portuguese crown during the early colonial period.
economic miracle: Period of spectacular economic growth in Brazil from 1967 to 1973.
Escola Superior de Guerra (Superior War College, or ESG): Military-training institute that was begun under Getúlio Vargas to professionalize the military.
Estado Nôvo: (literally, "New State") authoritarian regime under Getúlio Vargas, lasting from 1937 to 1945.
favelas: Urban shantytowns, or slums.
Federal Senate (Senado Federal): Name of the upper house of the Brazilian legislature.
Getúlio Vargas: Dominant, polarizing populist in twentieth- century Brazil who ruled as both a dictator (1930-1945) and an elected president (in the 1950s).
João Goulart: Elected Brazilian president and follower of Getúlio Vargas’s who was overthrown by a military coup in 1964.
grandeza: "ational greatness,"a term used by Brazilian nationalists to describe the value of the Amazon basin.
Landless Workers Movement (MST): Movement of landless peasants that has pressured the government to enact land reform.
liberation theology: Roman Catholic theological movement that encouraged political involvement of the poor and challenged the church hierarchy.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: Brazil’s current president, of working-class origins, elected in 2002 and popularly known as Lula.
MERCOSUR: Common Market of the South, founded in 1991 by Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
mulatto: Term describing Brazilians of mixed African and European ancestry.
National Congress (Congresso Nacional): Name of the Brazilian legislature.
national security doctrine: 1960s military doctrine that encouraged the Brazilian military to focus on internal ideological subversion rather than foreign invasion.
open-list proportional representation (PR): Unusual electoral system used for Brazil’s lower house of Congress, according to which voters can select either a party list individuals on the party list.
Pedro II: Brazil’s most important monarch, who ruled from 1840 to 1889.
populist: Term describing a number of Latin American leaders who favored an odd mix of statism, capitalism, nationalism, and personalism.
robust federalism: Term describing the very strong powers given to Brazilian states by the 1988 constitution.
state corporatism: Political model in which interest groups are required to participate through state-controlled "official"organizations and so can be controlled and co-opted.
Supreme Federal Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal): Brazil’s highest court.
Workers’ Party (PT): Brazil’s largest political party and the party of president Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, known for its working-class roots and social democratic ideology.
France
Absolute monarchy: That stage in the evolutionary development of Europe between the more decentralized feudal monarchies of the Middle Ages and the constitutional governments of the modern era.
Ancien régime: European "old order"of absolute monarchy buttressed by religious authority.
Assemblée nationale (National Assembly): Lower house of France’s legislature, consisting of 577 members.
Bipolar: Term describing the alternation between coalitions of the center right and the center left.
Blocked vote: Limitation on Parlement that forces the legislature to accept bills in their entirety and allows only votes on amendments that have been approved by the government.
Jacques Chirac: Current president of France.
Code law: Law that is derived from detailed legal codes rather than precedent.
Cohabitation: Arrangement in which a president who lacks a majority of legislative power appoints an opposition prime minister who can gain a majority of support in the legislature.
Constitutional Council: Group whose members are empowered to rule on any constitutional matter at the request of the government, the head of either house of the legislature, or a group of at least sixty members of either house.
Council of Ministers: The cabinet, whose members are selected by the prime minister.
Coup d’état: Forceful and sudden overthrow of government.
dirigisme: Emphasis on state authority in economic development"a combination of social democratic and mercantilist ideas.
Élysée Palace (Palais de l’Élysées): Building that houses the presidential staff, whose members assist in developing policy.
L’École nationale d’administration (ENA): National Administrative School.
Estates General: Weak assembly in prerevolutionary France, representing clergy, nobles, and commoners.
Eurocommunism: Line taken by the PCF in the 1960s that was pro-democratic, reformist, and critical of the Soviet Union.
Events of May: 1968 Paris riots, in which students and workers called for educational and social reforms.
Fifth Republic (1958–present): France’s current regime.
Force Ouvrière (FO): confederation of French labor unions backed by conservatives.
Four party, two bloc system: System that requires coalition building in the second round of France’s two-round, single-member-district system.
French Communist Party (PCF): One of two dominant parties of the French left since the end of World War II.
French Democratic Labor Confederation (CFDT): Confederation of labor unions that is smaller than the CGT and is backed by the PS.
French Revolution (1789–1799): Overthrow of the French absolute monarchy and establishment of the First Republic.
French Socialist Party (PS): Dominant party of the French left since the 1980s.
General Confederation of Labor (CGT): The most powerful confederation of unions in France, linked to the FCP.
Laïcité: Subordination of religious identity to state and national identity; state over church.
Jean-Marie Le Pen: founder of the National Front.
MEDEF (French Enterprise Movement): Strong organization that is an advocate for French business interests.
François Mitterrand: Leader of the PS starting in 1971 and president of France from 1981 to 1995.
Motion of censure: Act of the French legislature requiring that new elections be held, taken when proposed legislation submitted as a matter of confidence is not passed.
National Front (FN): Political party of the far right, created by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972.
Pantouflage (literally, "putting on slippers"): Term describing the movement of the administrative elite from the bureaucracy to the top echelons of the private sector.
Parlement: France’s legislature, which is bicameral.
Prefect: Government-appointed local official.
Prime minister: Official appointed by the president and approved by a majority of the lower house of the legislature, whose function is to select a cabinet and preside over the day-to-day affairs of the government.
Rally for the Republic (RPR): Party formed by Jacques Chirac as the more nationalist, socially conservative, European Union–skeptical force of the French right.
Regimes: The norms and rules that govern politics.
Reign of Terror (1793–1794): Seizure of power and class war launched by radical Jacobins in revolutionary France.
Semi-presidential: Legislative-executive system in which political power is shared by the legislature, a directly elected president, and a prime minister responsible to both the president and the legislature.
Sénat (Senate): Upper house of France’s legislature, consisting of 577 members.
tutelle: Administrative guidance.
Union for French Democracy (UDF): Alliance of five center-right parties, founded in 1978 by Jacques Chirac’s rival, former president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, as a more neo-liberal force of the French right.
Union for Popular Movement (UMP): Single cohesive party of the center right, formed in 2002 with Jacques Chirac’s encouragement.
India
Amritsar: Location of the Sikh Golden Temple in Punjab and the site of a 1984 military operation by Indira Gandhi’s government against Sikh separatists.
Ayodhya: Location of the Babri Mosque in northern India, which was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu militants, who have vowed to replace it with a Hindu temple.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): Indian People’s Party, a Hindu nationalist party that grew in strength during the 1990s and led a coalition government from 1998 to 2004.
caste: One of the hierarchical divisions within Hindu society that are determined by birth and traditionally dictated social behavior.
Dalits (Suppressed Groups): Self-referential name adopted by India’s so-called untouchables, or outcastes.
emergency rule: Constitutional provision permitting the Indian government to impose martial law on the country, as Indira Gandhi did from 1975 to 1977.
Indira Gandhi (1917–1984): Daughter of Nehru and prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984; known for her populism and for institution of emergency rule; assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
Mohatma (Mohandas K.) Ghandi (1869–1948): British-trained Indian lawyer who taught that nonviolent resistance could "move the world"and successfully campaigned to end British rule of India; assassinated by a Hindu militant soon after independence.
Sonia Gandhi: Italian-born widow of Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv Gandhi, who served as prime minister from 1984 to 1989 and was assassinated in 1991; currently the leader of the Congress Party.
green revolution: Improvements in crops and cropping technology in India and elsewhere that dramatically enhanced agricultural production in the 1960s and 1970s.
Gujarat: State in western India where thousands of Muslims were killed in riots in 2002 following the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims from Ayodhya.
Hindi: With English, one of India’s two national languages and the primary dialect spoken by nearly one third of all Indians.
Hinduism: The world’s third-largest religious tradition and the faith claimed by over 80 percent of all Indians.
Hindutva: Hindi word meaning "Hinduness,"used to describe movements promoting Hindu nationalism.
import-substitution industrialization: Strategy for economic growth in which a country restricts imports in order to spur demand for domestically produced goods.
Indian National Congress (INC):vanguard organization of Indian independence and the dominant political party since independence.
Kashmir: Region in northeastern India that is claimed by India and Pakistan and has been wracked by decades of violence.
Lok Rajya (House of States): The upper (and weaker) house of the Indian parliament.
Lok Sabha (House of the People): The lower (and dominant) house of the Indian parliament.
Manmohan Singh:prime minister of India since May 2004, the first Sikh to serve in that capacity.
Mughals: Muslim invaders who descend from Genghis Khan and unified India beginning in the sixteenth century.
Muslim League: With the Indian National Congress, an important force in leading the anti-colonial movement in India.
nabob game: Successful ploy of British imperialists to exploit colonial India by setting up puppet Mughal governorships, known as nabobs, that would do their bidding.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964): Leader of the Indian National Congress after Mahatma Gandhi’s death and with Gandhi the popularizer of the vision of India as a secular nation embracing all Indians.
outsourcing: Process of moving the production of goods and services to another country to take advantage of cheap labor or other savings.
partition: The bloody division of India and Pakistan in 1947, at the time of independence.
permit raj: Pejorative term describing India’s highly bureaucratized and politicized system of requiring permits or licenses to expand or initiate commercial or industrial production.
presidential rule: Constitutional right of the Indian government to oust a state government and rule by decree for an indefinite period of time; the state-level equivalent of emergency rule.
Sepoy Mutiny (1857–1858): Revolt of British-employed Indian sepoys, or soldiers, that prompted Britain to impose colonial rule on India.
Sikhism: An indigenous Indian religious tradition that combines Hindu and Muslim beliefs.
"untouchables": Those judged beneath or outside the caste system because of their occupation (hence the term outcastes), whose touch or even shadow was traditionally to be avoided by members of the upper castes.
Iran
Assembly of Experts: Elected body, whose members choose the supreme leader.
ayatollah: Senior Shiite cleric.
Basij: "People’s Militia,"which serves as a public-morals police force.
bonyads: Parastatal foundations formed in part from assets nationalized after the Iranian revolution.
chief justice: Head of Iran’s judiciary.
Council of Guardians: Appointed body whose members vet candidates for office and can overturn legislation.
Expediency Council: Appointed body whose members mediate legislative disputes between the Majlis and the Council of Guardians.
Farsi: Language of Iran.
Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988): Conflict between the two countries, begun by Iraq.
Islamic Republic of Iran: Name for postrevolutionary Iran.
Islamism or Islamic fundamentalism: The belief that Islam should be the source of a country’s political regime.
Ali Khamenei: Supreme leader of Iran since 1989.
Mohammad Khatami: President of Iran from 1997 to 2005.
Ruhollah Khomeini: First supreme leader of Iran, from 1980 to his death in 1989.
Koran: Central holy book of Islam.
Majlis: Legislature of Iran.
Muhammad Mosaddeq: Prime minister of Iran who was deposed in 1953 by Operation Ajax.
Operation Ajax: U.S. and UK-backed overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953.
Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944): Persian army officer who styled a coup d’état in 1921 and ruled the country until 1941, when he abdicated in favor of his son.
Persia: Name for Iran before 1935.
Muhammad (c. 570–632 c.e.): First and main prophet of Islam.
quietism: View within Shiism that rejects theocracy and the direct role of religion in the affairs of the state.
Revolutionary Guard: Paramilitary force charged with defending the Iranian regime from domestic and internal enemies.
SAVAK: Secret police of pre-revolutionary Iran.
Second Khordad Front: Reformist party that emerged in Iran to contest the 2000 Majlis elections.
sharia: religious law of Islam.
shiat Ali: "Party of Ali,"term from which the word Shiism derives.
Shiism: Minority sect of Islam that differs from the Sunni majority on the question of who are the proper descendents of the prophet Muhammad.
supreme leader: Chief spiritual and political leader of Iran.
theocracy: Rule by religion or religious leaders.
ummah: Word for "community,"meant to refer to the Islamic community everywhere.
velayat-e faqih: Rule by Islamic jurists; the political system of the Islamic Republic of Iran that places power in the hands of clerics.
White Revolution (1963): Policy of the shah’s to rapidly modernize and westernize Iran.
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