quality:corruption, structural:summarization
Government and politics

The South Korean government's structure is determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. Like many democratic states, South Korea has a government divided into three branches: executive, judicial, and legislative. The executive and legislative branches operate primarily at the national level, although various ministries in the executive branch also carry out local functions. The judicial branch operates at both the national and local levels. Local governments are semi-autonomous and contain executive and legislative bodies of their own. South Korea is a constitutional democracy.

The constitution has been revised several times since its first promulgation in 1948 at independence. However, it has retained many broad characteristics and with the exception of the short-lived Second Republic of Korea, the country has always had a presidential system with an independent chief executive. Under its current constitution the state is sometimes referred to as the Sixth Republic of Korea. The first direct election was also held in 1948.

Although South Korea experienced a series of military dictatorships from the 1960s until the 1980s, it has since developed into a successful liberal democracy. Today, the CIA World Factbook describes South Korea's democracy as a "fully functioning modern democracy", while The Economist Democracy Index classifies it as a "full democracy", ranking at 24th out of 167 countries in 2022. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices South Korea is 2023 the 3rd most electoral democratic country in Asia. South Korea is ranked 33rd on the Corruption Perceptions Index (6th in the Asia–Pacific region), with a score of 63 out of 100.