The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden surveyed some 179 countries to assess their levels of democracy for last year and South Korea was among five countries "in a substantial decline" along with Hong Kong, Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines.
Denmark topped the index, followed by Estonia, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway. Among neighboring countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan was ranked 27th, while China and North Korea were ranked near the bottom at 173rd and 178th, respectively.
With the index categorizing countries into four "types of regimes" – "liberal democracies," "electoral democracies," "electoral autocracies," and "closed autocracies," South Korea was classified as a country with electoral democracy rather than liberal democracy.
The institute pointed out that nearly 40 percent of the world's population suffered from autocratization last year and cited South Korea as one of many countries undergoing this trend, alongside Argentina, India, Indonesia, and Mexico.
It also flagged South Korea, along with Moldova and Romania, as a country where "media bias and self-censorship are becoming increasingly more common," pointing to media freedom being "undermined in still democratic countries."
Nevertheless, the country's ranking improved by several notches from 50th the previous year, as many other countries also experienced a drop in their rankings. The institute evaluated that roughly 72 percent of the world's population now lives under some forms of authoritarian rule, the highest since 1978.
The latest report comes after a similar assessment by the British think tank Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) last month, which downgraded the country from a "full democracy" to a "flawed democracy," a status it had maintained since 2020.
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