Fourth Republic of Korea
fourth republican system of Republic of Korea, established by October Yusin
The Fourth Republic of Korea (Korean: 제4공화국; RR: Je sa Gonghwaguk; lit. 'Fourth Republic') was the government of South Korea from November 1972 to February 1981.
The Fourth Republic was founded on the approval of the Yushin Constitution in the 1972 constitutional referendum, codifying the de facto dictatorial powers held by President Park Chung Hee, and succeeding the Third Republic. Park and his Democratic Republican Party ruled under the centralized and authoritarian Yushin System until the assassination of Park on 26 October 1979. The Fourth Republic entered a period of political instability under Park's successor, Choi Kyu-hah, and the escalating martial law declared after Park's death. Choi was unofficially overthrown by Chun Doo-hwan in the coup d'état of December Twelfth in December 1979, and began the armed suppression of the Gwangju Uprising against martial law. Chun launched the coup d'état of May Seventeenth in May 1980, establishing a military dictatorship under the National Council for Reunification and dissolving the National Assembly, and was elected president by the council in the August 1980 presidential election. The Fourth Republic was dissolved on the adoption of a new constitution in March 1981 and replaced with the Fifth Republic of Korea.
History
Background
Park Chung Hee had served as the leader and de facto dictator of South Korea since July 1961, coming to power two months after leading the May 16 coup which overthrew the Second Republic of Korea. Park and his supporters established the Supreme Council of National Reconstruction, a provisional military junta government that prioritized the economic development of South Korea, but faced strong pressure from the United States to restore the civilian government.
“Fourth Republic of Korea” enters the record as fourth republican system of Republic of Korea, established by October Yusin. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fourth, Republic and Korea can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Fourth Republic of Korea” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fourth, Republic and Korea provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q488521. Authority coordinates are 35.999, 128.004. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1981, 1979 and 1980.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fourth Republic of Korea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.