In the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the cabinet is the administrative and executive body. The North Korean government consists of three branches: administrative, legislative, and judicial. However, they are not independent of each other.
Some foreign observers have instead described North Korea's political system as an absolute monarchy or a "hereditary dictatorship". Others view its ideology as a racialist-focused nationalism similar to that of Shōwa Japan, or bearing a resemblance to European fascism. A defected North Korean scholar dismisses the idea that Juche is the country's leading ideology, regarding its public exaltation as designed to deceive foreigners