| Autocracies | Democracies | |
|---|---|---|
| 1945 | 22 | 21 |
| 1949 | 26 | 24 |
| 1955 | 34 | 25 |
| 1960 | 47 | 33 |
| 1965 | 61 | 34 |
| 1970 | 70 | 31 |
| 1975 | 82 | 34 |
| 1980 | 70 | 37 |
| 1985 | 68 | 42 |
| 1990* | 42 | 63 |
| 1995 | 35 | 74 |
| 2000 | 27 | 80 |
| 2005 | 23 | 89 |
* Berlin Wall fell in 1989
# of countries
Sources:
ourworldindata.org
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After WWII, the number of both democracies and autocracies in the world were low, but over the course of the Cold War, the number of autocracies increased dramatically - until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which precipitated the rise of a more democratic world as the number of democracies and autocracies was exactly the same at 52.