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Since the end of World War II and most particularly since the late 1970s, the world has been in the midst of a paradigm shift from a world of states modeled after the idea of the nation-state developed in the seventeenth century to a world of diminished state sovereignty and increasingly constitutionalized interstate linkages of a federal character. This paradigm shift has been noted by students of federalism and international relations both. It has been most strongly manifested in the economic sphere. Worldwide and regional economic arrangements have become essential to the peace and prosperity of the world and, while formally voluntary, no state can remain outside of the increasingly more demanding economic networks. Thus, those networks have acquired an increasingly confederal dimension. Foremost among them is that of Western Europe which, since the Maastricht Treaty, has been transformed into a confederation in fact if not in name. Other arrangements approach the European Union in varying degrees. In this new paradigm, existing states will not disappear; rather, they will be overlaid by a variety of federal arrangements of a confederal character that will tie them ever closer to each other.