By Sohn JiAe

Korea has risen to 20th place on a global democracy index.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis service affiliated with The Economist magazine, released its Democracy Index 2017 report on Jan. 31, in which Korea came in 20th, jumping four spots from 24th in 2016. It’s now higher than the U.S., which came in at 21st.

In the Asia & Australasia category, Korea came in third place, beating its neighbors like Japan in fourth, Taiwan in fifth and India in sixth.

The EIU said that the power of the nation’s democracy had been driven by the candlelit vigils in which the people took to the streets.

“In South Korea, a popular movement eventually led to the impeachment of the then president, Park Geun-hye, who was found guilty of embezzlement. South Korea ranked 20th in 2017, improving from 24th in 2016,” it said.

The nation has been classified as a “flawed democracy,” though.

The research group sorts economies into four categories: countries with more than 8.01 points out of 10 placed as “full democracy”; those with a score of between 6.0 and 8.0 as “flawed democracy”; those with 4.0 to 6.0 points as “hybrid regime”; and, lastly, countries with less than 4.0 considered as being “authoritarian.”

Despite relatively high scores -- a score of 9.17 in the categories of “electoral process and pluralism” and a score of 8.24 in the “functioning of government,” Korea earned smaller scores in terms of “political participation” and “political culture,” a score of 7.22 and 7.5, respectively.

With an overall score of 8.0, the country couldn’t reach the realm of being a "full democracy." Its lower media freedom status could be another culprit of the failure to join the ranks of the world’s fully democratic states, as the nation was placed 49th and is seen as being “partly free” in terms of freedom among journalists and broadcasters.

jiae5853@korea.kr