ABSTRACT
Speaking of ethnic groups as language groups opens up a fascinating perspective in macro research, allowing one to engage in global modelling. This chapter suggests that concept of language families be employed instead of the troublesome concept of race when studying ethnicity on a global level. Globalization involves extensive migration which is conducive to ethnic heterogeneity in the immigrant countries. Searching for the outcomes of ethnicity we will concentrate on societies with wide ethnic diversity. Ethnicity in its most extensive sense stands for families of languages, of which one may wish to count only five to ten. Ethnic groups in action are perhaps the most substantial evidence one can have of the importance of ethnicity. When measuring more specifically ethnic fragmentation in a country, the link between ethnicity and language is very transparent. When ethnicity is operationalized with indicators, then it is relevant in more than one way for American elections in terms of regional outcomes of the major parties.
