In the systemic competition with the world’s democracies, autocracies are increasingly gaining the upper hand. The Bertelsmann Foundation’s tenth transformation index, which analyzes the situation in the world’s developing and transition countries, diagnoses the continuation of a global trend. „In a growing number of countries, the opponents of democratic and market-economy reforms are at the center of power.“ There are now 74 developing and transition countries with a total population of four billion people ruled autocratically, while 63 countries with three billion people are democracies.