Book excerpt: This is an inquiry into ethnicity as a major factor in government and politics in developed nations (primarily western nations) and developing nation-states (primarily third-world countries). Often, in an ambiguous manner, ethnicity is taken to mean race or «tribe», but much is omitted in this uncertain usage. In the present study, ethnicity is used to encompass - separately, collectively, or in any combination of two or more intrinsic characteristics - race, religion, language, and culture. As used in modern social science, «ethnicity» is a term still in search of a definition.