Carolyn M. Hendriks is a Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy with a background in political science and environmental engineering. She has published widely on the democratic aspects of contemporary governance, including participation, public deliberation, inclusion and representation.

Carolyn is the author of three books, including Democratic Mending: democratic repair in disconnected times (with Ercan & Boswell, Oxford University Press, 2020, Oct), The Politics of Public Deliberation (Palgrave, 2011), Environmental Decision Making: Exploring Complexity and Context (with Harding and Faruqi, Federation Press 2009). She has also authored over 30 journal articles, a number of which have won international prizes.

Over the past twenty years Carolyn has led numerous interpretive research projects in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands on how citizens, activists and elites experience participatory, deliberative and networked modes of governing. She has also undertaken research on how politicians engage with citizens, for example through their executive roles, legislative committees and constituency service. Carolyn’s more recent research considers how citizens themselves are seeking to transform dysfunctional democratic and governance institutions.

In 2023 Carolyn was awarded a four-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship to research how elected representative learn and practice political representation.

During 2019-2020 Carolyn was a Senior Visiting Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University. Carolyn is also an appointed member of newDemocracy Foundation’s Research Committee and sits on the editorial board of several international journals, including the European Journal of Political Research.

For more, visit Carolyn’s Google Scholar page.