過去公民社會與收入不平等研究，侷限個案研究與歷史分析，難以跨國比較，而民主轉型與收入不平等研究，則缺乏公民社會獨立分析的視角，本文在處理這兩點限制後，進一步分析公民社會、民主，對收入不平等的作用。
藉由跨國實證資料，本文證實公民社會的活躍，無論政權是否民主轉型，均能減緩吉尼係數增加；使用數據自1991年至2016年，共27年141國，並採用廣義合成控制方法(Generalized Synthetic Control Method)，以未民主轉型國家模擬民主轉型國家，控制民主轉型對於吉尼係數的效果，以此說明不是民主轉型發揮作用，而是公民社會減低了收入不平等。
而自變項公民社會、重要控制變項民主，分別取自Varieties of Democracy的專家衡量指標、Polity IV計畫，並控制不同階級政治平等程度指標、社會福利普及指標，評估對於收入分配不平等的影響，而本文亦將公民社會透過民主中介，才能影響收入不平等的效果，以交互作用控制，結果證實公民社會活躍，是降低收入不平等的關鍵因素。

Is civil society or does democracy reduce income inequality? With regard to this question, previous literatures actually didn’t have too much discussion on this topic. Researchers tend to discuss income inequality in their respective fields of civil society and democratic transition. Therefore, the research on income inequality in both fields has limitations. Civil society researches in the income inequality area are limited to case studies and historical analysis. Those researches were difficult to compare in cross-national level. In contrast to civil society research in the income inequality area, the democratic transition research in the income inequality area are widely applied the cross-national method. However, it lacked the independent perspective analysis of civil society. This paper will deal with these two limitations. Examining the hypothesis about is civil society and democratic transition reduces income inequality.
In order to estimate the democratic transition effect on income inequality more unbiased. This paper will use the Generalized Synthetic Control Method. It is the method that answering what if democratic transition didn’t happen, is income inequality will worsen or not. It can examine the democratic transition effect more intuitively. Hence, statistical result is easier to interpret.
To sum up, the statistical result shows that democratic transition effect is not the key factor that can reduce inequality. The vibrant civil society, regardless of the regime type, can reduce the Gini coefficient. Even if democratic mediator variable is added to the model to control the interaction between civil society and democracy, civil society can still significantly reduce income inequality. In other words, the analysis of civil society and inequality based on case studies in the past actually has the effect of general theory.

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