Following the promulgation in October 1972 of the Yushin Constitution, which implemented numerous authoritarian centralizing measures such as the direct appointment of a third of the National Assembly by the President, the DRP assumed an unprecedented level of political power. For the next eight years, South Korea was essentially a one-party state ruled by the DRP.
After Park's assassination on 26 October 1979 and the seizure of power by Chun Doo-hwan in the coup d'état of December Twelfth, the DRP was dissolved on 1 September 1980, and nominally superseded by the Korean National Party. However, leadership of the state was assumed by the Democratic Justice Party, formed in January 1981, which is seen as the spiritual successor of the DRP in terms of its constitutional vision and mimicking of Park's leadership style. Through evolution, the Grand National Party is seen by many as the modern heir to the DRP, though the policies advocated by South Korean conservatives have changed significantly since South Korea's democratization in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
^ abcKohli, A. (2004). State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 92.
^ abKim, B. K. & Vogel, E. F. (eds.) (2011). The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Harvard University Press. p. 125.
