Last year a full democracy, South Korea was ranked a flawed democracy this year with a score of 7.75 and a global ranking of 32nd. The report attributed this shift to "tumultuous political events at the end of 2024," referring to the sudden and short-lived martial law declaration.

It was an eventful political year and

this was reflected in the index by

nine changes in regime type, more

than has been the case for many

years. The Czech Republic, Estonia

and Portugal moved up the rankings

to become “full democracies”. France

and South Korea, by contrast, were

relegated to the “flawed democracy”

classification.