Generation of confinement and other nonperturbative effects by infrared gluonic degrees of freedom

Recent progress in understanding the emergence of confinement and other nonperturbative effects in the strong interaction vacuum is reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on the role of different types of collective infrared gluonic degrees of freedom in this respect. After a survey of complementary approaches, models of the QCD vacuum based on center vortices, Abelian magnetic monopoles and topological charge lumps such as instantons, merons and calorons are examined. Both the physical mechanisms governing these models as well as recent lattice studies of the respective degrees of freedom are reviewed.