社會正義為當前人們所關注的重大議題之一，特別是當前政府高呼轉型正義之時，社會正義與否顯得更為重要。然而「正義」一詞的定義時有爭論，本研究利用勞爾斯的「正義論」中對於正義之定義為基礎，探討社會正義之根本問題－民主。本研究建構了2013至2016年總計199國之追蹤資料，以民主指數做為應變數，各項總體指標以及各項經濟自由度做為應變數以探討民主的構成因素，並以隨機效果模型進行迴歸分析。資料的部分區分為議會制、非議會制、貧困國家、與富有國家四類，針對不同的政體以及經濟發展程度做不同討論，亦針對不同之民主指標分別分析其結果。研究結果顯示不管在何種狀況之下，議會制對於民主皆有正向且顯著之影響，國家清廉與否亦直接影響民主的發展。此外，提高最高的所得稅率、保障私有財產、開放貿易等亦有助於國家民主之進程，意即政府當局如要使一國之民主得以提升，首要考量的是這幾項因素。本研究亦印證了Barro (1999)之論點，即國家大小並非民主的決定性條件，人均GDP的多寡也非影響民主之關鍵因素。 Justice and equality are popular issues that most people concern about at present, while the term “justice” is still ambiguous. In this study, we adopt Rawls’ (1971) definition of justice from A Theory of Justice to investigate the indicator of democracy which is one of the criteria factors for social justice. We collected a panel data from 199 countries since 2013 to 2016 and separated the data into four categories, parliamentary, non-parliamentary, poor and rich countries. The empirical results show that the parliamentary system has a positive and significant impact on the indicator of democracy, national integrity also affects the development of democracy directly. In addition, rising the highest income tax rate, protecting private property, and free trading have significant contribution for the improvement of a nation’s democracy. The results are consistent with the results of Barro (1999) that the size of the country and the GDP per capita are not necessary factors for a nation’s democracy.
