Confidence-Building Measures
(see Stockholm Declaration)
Congress
In general terms a congress is a meeting of representatives or officials for debate
and discussion. More specifically the term is used to refer to thelegislatureof
the USA, which consists of a 435-member House of Representatives (the
‘lower’ House) and a 100-member Senate. Members of the House of Repre-
sentatives are elected every two years; members of the Senate are elected for six
years, a third of the Senators coming up for re-election in rotation every two
years. Although all of these people are strictly speaking members of Congress,
it is customary to refer only to members of the lower house as Congressmen or
Congresswomen; members of the Senate (seesecond chamber) are referred
to as Senators.
In India the main political party involved in the struggle for independence
from the British Empire was the Congress Party; it dominated Indian political
life from independence in 1947 until the 1980s, and remained the largest party,
despite various splits. Various sub-national organizations call themselves con-
gresses, such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the major
trade unionorganizations in the USA and the United Kingdom respectively.
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna took place at the end of the Napoleonic wars and
established the classicbalance-of-powersystem in Europe. It is often used as
a model or reference point in international relations when efforts are made to
predict the system likely to follow thebipolarcold war. The Congress met in
1814 and concluded in June 1815 (the fact that Napoleon’s second attempt to
defeat the allies after his return from exile ended at the Battle of Waterloo in the
same month does not seem to have affected the proceedings, in which France
was partially included). The decisions were effectively taken by the four
leading members of the anti-Napoleon coalition, Britain, Austria, Prussia
and Russia. Among the immediate consequences were the creation of: a
new united Kingdom of the Netherlands (which included Belgium and
Luxembourg); a loosely structured German Confederation of 39 Germanic
states under the domination of Prussia; and the restoration of ‘legitimate’
monarchies in many of the places Napoleon had conquered. Major alterations
were made to various state boundaries, especially to the benefit of Austria and
Prussia. In essence the European system of states was set by this congress and
was to last with only minor modifications until destroyed by the First World
Congress of Vienna