Welcome!

You will find some details here about my research. Please get in touch!

About me

I am a doctoral candidate at Central European University in Vienna and a research fellow at the University of Vienna. My dissertation examines how political institutions (e.g., elections) interact with group identities, such as partisanship and gender, through the lenses of affective polarization and group representation. Beyond this, I study how citizens form opinions on contentious or complex issues —like political scandals or drug regulation— and how biases constrain democratic accountability. To address these questions, I primarily use surveys, survey experiments, and causal inference methods for observational data. When out of office, I am a serious hobby cyclist, and a nature and animal enthusiast.

Publications

Citizen accountability

Hamrak, B., Simonovits, G., Rusnak, A., & Szucs, F. (2024). Why Politicians Won’t Apologize: Communication Effects in the Aftermath of Sex Scandals. British Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123424000292
Hamrak, B., Simonovits, G. & Szucs, F. (2024). Equilibrium communication in political scandals. European Journal of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102580

Partisan and group identities, and polarization

Hamrak, B. (2025). Identity After the Ballot: How winning and losing impact partisan identity and affective polarization. Electoral Studies. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102967
Hamrak, B., Jenne, E., Littvay, L., & Simonovits, G. (2025). The public opinion effects of antisemitic anti-elite cues. A survey experiment on the Hungarian Soros campaign. East European Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2025.2548250

Miscellaneous topics

Simonovits, G., Szucs, F., Hamrak, B., (2025). Door to door campaigns in an electoral autocracy: Evidence from Hungary. The Journal of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1086/735870

Research in-progress

Citizen accountability and representation:

Status quo bias and preferences for drug legalization: Evidence from a novel experimental approach (with Gabor Simonovits) Revise & resubmit
From Presidential Palace to Potholes: Does Female Leadership Spur Women’s Local Political Engagement? (with Daniel Kovarek)
Evaluating Democracy: Lay Perceptions vs. Experts Assessments in Hungary (with Alexander Bor)
How Identity Fragmentation Complicates Voter-Party Congruence (with Jozef Michal Mintal, Felix Butzlaff, Robert Vancel, Kamila Borsekova) Revise & resubmit

Partisan identity:

More Than a Game? A Multi-Event Regression Discontinuity Analysis on the Effect of Football on Out-Party Animosity
In-party favoritism or out-party threat? Testing the mechanisms behind citizens’ differential support for democratic norm violation in opposition and government (with Kata Moravecz, Mariyana Angelova, Levente Littvay, Jennifer McCoy, and Gabor Simonovits)