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on designed to reduce political inequality instead of equalities of other sorts that have their own dynamics, so it does not necessarily reduce socioeconomic inequalities. Also, contractarian political theory puts forth (Ansell and Samuels 2010) that because democracy is about states' impartially protecting individuals' property rights against others' violations, it should never be in favour of policies for the poor to expropriate resources from the rich (Bermeo 2009). Therefore, democracies like U.S. and Brazil always consist of socioeconomic inequalities (2009).

More extremely, Pareto (Lenski 1966) and Luckham (Luckham et al 2003) suggest that democracy could worsen socioeconomic inequalities, because in democracies the majority just have a cast of ballot in infrequent intervals, while the states' affair (e.g. making economic and social policies) are inherently controlled by elites (mainly professional politicians and commercial class). Taking the advantages of knowledge, wealth and social network, they tend to have greater political influence to object to the pro-poor policies that may eclipse their interests, and to agree on those conducive to their interests (2003), causing larger socioeconomic disparities in democracies (e.g. U.S.).

In the face of contrasting performances and theories of democracies' impacts on socioeconomic inequalities, the U-shape theory is raised that at the beginning of democratization, socioeconomic inequalities might increase due to political turbulence, while after the democratic institutions are established and stable, socioeconomic inequalities would lessen (Crawford and Abdulai 2011). It might help to explain why new democracies like Thailand, which have been democratized for only decades, have some of the largest inequalities in the world (Bermeo 2009); but this still does not explain why much older democracies, like the U.S., have increasing inequalities in these aspects. Therefore, generally speaking, the nexus between democracy and socioeconomic inequalities remain contingent (Timmons 2010).

The link between autocracy and socioeconomic inequality 专制与社会经济不平等之间的联系
Definition of autocracy
On the other hand, the debate on the impact of autocracies on socioeconomic inequalities is also intense. 'Autocracy' refers to the absolute and unchecked power vested mostly in a single individual, military or monopolistic party (Heywood 2000). Some modern autocracies, such as China, Russia and Venezuela, have begun to change their political forms through opening business, diversifying media and holding elections, thereby coming closer to democracy in order to court the international acceptance (Walker 2012). Fundamentally, however, their essence of an autocratic government has not changed (closing politics, not allowing media to be politically plural, elections not reflecting the view of people) (2012).

Theoretical debates and actual performance 理论辩论与实际表现
In this sense, people in autocracies do not enjoy as much political rights as their democratic counterparts (Heywood 2000); and it seems more difficult for them to demand egalitarian economic and social policies from their governments. In fact, there are autocracies with poor performance in reducing economic and social inequalities. For instance, in African autocracies, such as Congo and Central African Republic, distributions of both economic and soci