structural:reformatting
Today

In today's global hierarchy, some states are transitioning upward, and others are moving downward in terms of status and influence. Former colonial powers no longer exercise control over an international domain and are instead mostly relegated to their core; for example, former European world powers do not exert influence over colonial outposts in the Americas, Africa, or Asia but rather have consolidated their power in the form of the European Union. The new leading powers are mostly non-European (United States, Canada, Japan). Outside those developed countries are countries (see list below) that are considered semi-periphery and are both dominant and dominated within economic, political, and social realms. Tse middle powers are a combination of nations that have emerged as a result of the fragmentation of the Soviet Union and nations that have risen because of their possession of resources in high demand, like oil in Saudi Arabia. While those nations are by no means on the level of the stated world powers, they exert influence over the weaker nations of the impoverished Fourth World.