Glossary — P

Glossary terms beginning with P.

p'a: The lineage, a kinship unit consisting of all descendants of a common male ancestor who, in many cases, was the founder of a village. Some p’a contain thousands of households-- chip (q.v.)--and members conduct ceremonies at the common ancestral gravesite. In some villages or hamlets in traditional Korea, many or most of the people were members of the same p’a.
p'ansori: Combine music and literary expression in ballad-for stories, which are both recited and sung by a performer accompanied by a drummer who sets the rhythms--a kind of ""one-man opera"" in the words of one observer.
paddy: Threshed, unmilled rice, which is the basis of the subsistence economy of much of South and Southeast Asia. It is grown on flooded or heavily irrigated flatland.
Pakhtuns: Term used for speakers of Pakhtu or Pashtu, who are frequently called Pathans or Pashtuns. The tribes north of Peshawar are mostly Pahktu speaking, those south of Peshawar mostly Pashtu speaking.
pakhtunwali: Tenets of the Pakhtun code of honor.
PALA: Partido Laborista Agrario (Labor and Agrarian Party, often referred to simply as the Labor Party). Despite title, generally right-of- center, pro-business. Part of pro-government coalition, UNADE (q.v.).
palatine: Originally created in the fifteenth century. Highest officeholder in Hungary in the eighteenth century; in theory, the commander in chief of the Hungarian armed forces.
Pale of Settlement: Area of twenty-five provinces of czarist Russia within which Jews were allowed to live, outside of which they could reside only with specific permission.; Source: Library of Congress
Palestinian: Narrowly, a citizen of the British mandated territory of Palestine (1922-48). Generally, a Muslim or Christian native or descendant of a native of the region between the Egyptian Sinai and Lebanon and west of the Jordan River-Dead Sea-Gulf of Aqaba line who identifies himself primarily as a Palestinian.
Pali: The language of the Theravada Buddhist sacred scriptures. A Prakrit, or a language derived from Sanskrit.
Palmach: Abbreviation for Pelugot Mahatz, shock forces. In British Palestine and until June 1948, it was a commando section of the Jewish military forces. Organized in 1941 to provide the Haganah (q.v.) with a mobile force, it consisted of young men mostly from kibbutzim, who took military training while working part-time at farming, serving in cooperation with the British army, without pay or uniforms.; Source: Library of Congress
Panama Canal net ton: Measure used to assess tolls for the Panama Canal based on 100 cubic feet of a vessel’s net earning capacity, usually meaning its cargo space.
Pancasila: The state philosophy based on five interrelated principles: belief in one supreme God; just and civilized humanitarianism; nationalism as expressed in the unity of Indonesia; popular sovereignty arrived at through deliberation and representation or consultative democracy; and social justice for all the Indonesian people. The Pancasila was announced by Sukarno on June 1, 1945. From Sanskrit: panca (five) and sila (principle).
Panch Shila: Literally, five principles of foreign policy: mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. The Panch Shila were enunciated by Jawaharlal Nehru in April 1954 in a trade agreement with China and adopted as a keystone of relations among nations at the Asian-African Conference (the Bandung Conference) held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955.
panchayat: In ancient times, a Nepalese public assembly, ideally comprised of the five (pancha) most important caste or occupational groups in the village. A pancha is a member of a panchayat. From 1962 until the 1990 constitution took effect, assemblies modeled on this ancient system formed the backbone of political structure in Nepal, at the village and district levels, and at the top in the National Panchayat, or Rashtriya Panchayat.; Source: Library of Congress
pandit(s): Honorific for erudite individual, sometimes taken as personal or family name. Various Brahmans (q.v.) (such as the family of Jawaharlal Nehru) were known as pandits. Sometimes transliterated as pundit.
Pannonia: Former Roman province west of the Danube in present-day Hungary and northern Yugoslavia.
PAPO: Partido de Acción Popular (Popular Action Party). Minor independent party that contested 1984 elections but lost legal status by failing to garner 3 percent of total vote.
parastatal: A semi-autonomous, quasi-qovernmental, state-owned enterprise.
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
Parrot's Beak: The part of the Cambodian province of Svay Rieng that juts into the southern Vietnamese provinces of Tay Ninh and Long An. During the South Vietnamese and United States incursion into Cambodia in 1970, and again during the Vietnamese invasion that drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1978, the area was the scene of heavy fighting.
Partnership for Peace (PfP): An initiative by NATO (q.v.) for the former Warsaw Pact (q.v.) member countries and the former Soviet republics, including Russia, to expand political and military cooperation and promote democratic principles in those countries. PfP aims to facilitate transparency in defense planning and budgeting, ensure democratic control of defense forces, maintain readiness to contribute to United Nations and OSCE (q.v.) operations, and develop cooperative military relations with NATO for peacekeeping, search-and-rescue, and humanitarian operations. All former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states were members by 1996, and many had conducted joint military exercises with NATO forces.
Party Rules: HSWP document, which can be altered by the party congress. The Party Rules contain sections on regulations for admission into the HSWP, the organizational structure of the party, the principles of democratic centralism, the role of the Basic Organization, the tasks of the party in state and mass organizations, and membership dues.
pasha: Title of honor held by members of the Muslim ruling class in the Ottoman Empire.; Source: Library of Congress
passenger kilometers: The total number of kilometers traveled by passengers by a given mode of transportation in a specified period of time.; Source: Library of Congress
Pathans: Pakhtuns (q.v.).
Pathet Lao (Lao Nation): Literally, land of the Lao. Until October 1965, the name for the Lao People’s Liberation Army (q.v.), the military arm of the Lao Patriotic Front (q.v.).
patriarch: Head of an independent Orthodox Church, such as the Russian Orthodox Church or one of the Uniate (q.v.) churches.
patrilineage: A group of male and female descendants of a male ancestor, each of whom is related to the common ancestor through male forebears.
patrimonial: Relates to an estate or any heritage from one’s father or other ancestors.
patrón: Usually a large landowner who is called on to provide his workers land, water, and sometimes materials and/or equipment and salary payments, as well as protection from outsiders, including local officials, and even from fellow workers.
patronato real: The ""king’s patronage"" was the absolute control of clerical patronage in the colonies that the papacy gave to the kings of Spain. The Spanish Crown maintained this extensive power over the church throughout the colonial period. It ended with independence, when the church lost the protection of royal support.
PCR: Partidul Comunist Român (Romanian Communist Party). The ruling and only legal political party. Founded in 1921, the Communist Party was declared illegal in 1924 and operated underground until 1944. The party came to power as a result of the Soviet occupation during the final year of World War II. In 1948 it merged with on wing of the Social Democratic Party to form the Romanian Workers’ Party (Partidul Muncitoresc Român--PMR). In 1965 the party assumed its present name.
PDC: Partido Demócrato Cristiano (Christian Democratic Party). Centrist opposition party. Part of opposition coalition, ADO (q.v.).
PdP: Partido del Pueblo (People’s Party). Far left, orthodox communist, pro-Moscow party. Ran candidates in 1984 elections, but lost legal status by failing to win 3 percent of total vote.
People's Action Party (PAP): Singapore’s dominant political party, which has controlled the government by winning every general election since 1959.
People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN): The military forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (until 1976) and, after reunification, of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the Second Indochina War (q.v.), PAVN bore the brunt of the fighting against the United States military forces in Vietnam, but was consistently able to recoup its losses and infiltrate units south by means of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (q.v.). Failing to topple the Saigon government during the Tet Offensive of 1968, PAVN undertook its first conventional invasion of South Vietnam in the Easter Offensive of 1972. This attempt ended in defeat, but PAVN’s next effort, the Spring Offensive of 1975, quickly overran the ineffectual ARVN resistance and toppled the Saigon government, thereby bringing to a close the Second Indochina War.
people's commune: Formerly the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas in the period from 1958 to 1982-85, when they were replaced by townships (q.v.). Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams (q.v.). The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions.
People's Power: The popular uprising that ousted President Ferdinard E. Marcos in February 1986. The movement was best known as People’s Power in the United States, but in the Philippines it was also referred to as the EDSA Revolution (q.v.).
perestroika: Russian term meaning ""restructuring."" Applied in the late 1980s to an official Soviet program of revitalization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU--q.v.), the economy, and the society by adjusting economic, social, and political mechanisms in the central planning system. Identified with the tenure of Mikhail S. Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union.; Source: Library of Congress
permafrost: Permanently frozen condition of soil except for surface soils that thaw when air temperatures rise above freezing. Thawing and refreezing cause instability of the soil, which greatly complicates the construction and maintenance of roads, railroads, and buildings. Permafrost covers roughly the northern one-third of the Russian Federation.
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.
Persian: As a language, a member of the Iranian subgroup in the Indo-European language family. The official language of modern Iran and spoken widely in Afghanistan. Middle Persian (Pahlavi) was used between the third century B.C. and the ninth century A.D. and was the official language of the Sassanid Empire that ruled parts of Central Asia from the third century to the sixth century A.D. Modern Persian is called Farsi by native speakers.
personalism: The dominance of a charismatic personality in the political life of a nation. Loyalty is to a political leader rather than to institutions, organizations, or ideals.; Source: Library of Congress
peseta: Basic Spanish currency unit. Consists of 100 centimos, but these are no longer in legal use. In terms of the United States dollar, the exchange rate averaged 60 pesetas in 1965, 56 pesetas in 1975, 79 pesetas in 1980, 126 pesetas in 1982, 173 pesetas in 1984, 154 pesetas in 1985, 134 pesetas in 1986, 107 pesetas in 1987, and 113 pesetas in 1988.
peso (Mex$): Mexican currency prior to 1993. At par with the dollar in the nineteenth century, the Mexican government occasionally devalued the peso in the first half of the twentieth century. From 1954 until 1975, the peso’s value was fixed at US$1 = Mex$12.49. In 1976 the peso was allowed to float and depreciated to about US$1 = Mex$100 in 1982. By 1992, however, the peso’s value had fallen to US$1 = Mex$3,000, and a new currency, the new peso (NMex$--q.v.), was introduced, replacing the peso at the rate of 1 new peso = 1,000 pesos.
peso (P): Philippine currency, which is subdivided into 100 centavos. In December 1991, the official exchange rate was US$1 equals P26.70.
Petofi Circle: A group formed in 1956 named after the nineteenth-century poet and revolutionary Sandor Petofi, who symbolized Hungary’s desire for freedom. Made up of liberal writers, intellectuals, and some communists, the circle generated the ideas that led to the Revolution of 1956.
Phalange Party: Founded in 1936 by Pierre Jumayyil (also seen as Gemayel), the Phalange, or Phalanxes (Kataib in Arabic), was a mostly Maronite organization whose followers were known as Phalangists. Its policies were Western oriented and right wing. Its powerful militia, which was supported by Israel, participated heavily on the Christian side in the 1975 Civil War. Beginning in the late 1970s, as its militia, led by Pierre’s son Bashir, seized control of other Christian forces, it became known as the Lebanese Forces (LF). By the mid- to late 1980s, however, after Bashir’s assassination and Pierre’s death, Phalange power ebbed, and it lost control of the LF.
pharaonic: Prefers to the glories of Egypt’s ancient period under the rule of the pharaohs.