Dr Constanza Sanhueza

Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics and Program Convenor of the Bachelor of Political Science at the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR). She is also a Fellow at the Australian Centre for Federalism at ANU, and Co-Chair of the Quantitative Methods Research Group at the Australian Political Studies Association, where she coordinates the Annual Quantitative Workshops and Seminars.

Constanza holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Mannheim. Her doctoral research examined the effects of immigration on voting behaviour, political parties, and representation across European democracies. In recent years she has developed a broader research agenda encompassing the empirical study of democracy and democratic backsliding, elections, representation and the impact of artificial intelligence on democratic processes. Her work has been published in Democratisation, Governance, Party Politics, and other peer-reviewed journals. 

Prior to joining ANU in 2022, she worked as Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, at the Varieties of Democracy Institute at the University of Gothenburg, and at Sciences Po Paris. Constanza was the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship from the European Commission. She also held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, University of Montreal, the European University Institute, the University of Vienna, and the University of Oslo.

Alongside her academic work, Constanza has extensive experience as a consultant and advisor for the European Commission, the European Parliament, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), among other international and national agencies. She is also actively engaged with media commentary and analysis, in executive teaching, and contributing to civil society organisations and public debate on current political affairs.

PhD in Political Science, University of Mannheim. MPhil, MA

Comparative politics, Democracy, Elections, Political Representation, Parties, Voters, Surveys, Experiments, Text Analysis, European politics, Latin American Politics.