Kelly Ann Krawczyk is an associate professor and the Ph.D. program director in the Department of Political Science at Auburn. Krawczyk’s research focuses on the relationship between civil society and democratic governance. She is specifically interested in how civil society impacts political behavior. Her research has been published in journals of public administration and civil society, including Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations and the Journal of Civil Society. She has also authored book chapters, as well as governmental and professional publications for the Governance Commission of Liberia and the World Bank. She is currently working on an edited volume under contract with Palgrave Macmillan entitled “Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives: The Contributions of Women to Development in West Africa” (Editors: Kelly Krawczyk, Bridgett King and Atta Ceesay).
Krawczyk regularly teaches a course called Public Administration, Civil Society, and Democracy, and has traveled with students as part of this course to Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and South Africa. This graduate-level course employs an African country as a case study to explore the relationships between public administration, civil society and democracy. The course also includes a two-week trip during the semester. Students learn about governance processes and institutions, public administration and civil society through in-country interaction with civil servants, members of civil society, academics and citizens. The trip also provides students the opportunity to engage in rapid assessment field research and to engage in cultural and tourist activities.
Krawczyk is a founding committee member of the Strengthening Research on Civil Society in West Africa project, an initiative of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), funded by the Ford Foundation. She is also a Democracy & Development fellow at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana). Krawczyk is a co-founder of the Global Development Solutions (GDS) Lab at Auburn University. The GDS Lab is an interdisciplinary initiative at Auburn that fosters global research, teaching and community-engaged scholarship. The mission of the GDS Lab is to advance global research, teaching and engaged scholarship that promotes sustainable community development, protects civic space and leverages the synergies between the disciplines of nonprofit studies, philanthropy and social work.
