[The Public=Reporter Choi Eol] President Lee Jae-myung said on the 17th that he was relieved the country was regaining its standing after a report showed South Korea’s democracy index ranking had rebounded sharply from the previous year.
He shared the coverage on X (formerly Twitter) and wrote similarly on his account.
The Democracy Report 2026, published by V-Dem — the democracy research institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden — analyzed 179 countries and found South Korea’s overall democracy index ranking rose 19 places, from 41st in 2024 to 22nd in 2025.
The institute classifies countries’ levels of democracy into four categories: liberal democracy, electoral democracy, electoral autocracy, and closed autocracy.
Electoral democracy denotes a system that guarantees free elections and the freedoms of expression and association. Liberal democracy represents the highest tier: beyond those guarantees, it includes effective checks on the executive by the judiciary and legislature, robust protection of civil liberties, and equality before the law.
