About me

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna. My research is on political behavior and political psychology, organized around three themes. One strand examines democratic accountability: how voters respond to political scandals, whether policy outcomes reflect or distort public preferences, and how citizens monitor democratic norms. A second strand explores how institutions, events, and outcomes shape group identity — from partisan attitudes around elections to the effects of descriptive and symbolic representation on the political engagement. A third strand studies the politics of backsliding democracies: citizens' perceptions of democratic quality, opposition campaigning under competitive authoritarianism, and how elite messaging exploits and deepens societal polarization. To address these questions, I primarily use surveys, survey experiments, and causal inference methods for observational data. When out of the office, I am a serious hobby cyclist and a nature and animal enthusiast.

Publications

• 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. ARTICLE MEDIA
  Abstract

  A startling feature of the countless recent sex scandals involving politicians has been the almost complete lack of public apologies. This note explores the electoral incentives politicians face when crafting communication strategies in the aftermath of sex scandals. We focus on two communication strategies – denials and apologies – and assess their impact on incumbent support across a wide range of scandals that vary in terms of the seriousness of the charges as well as the availability of evidence. Using data from a series of survey experiments, including over 10,000 respondents we find that citizens punish incumbents who apologize, even in the case of accusations that appear the least serious in the eyes of voters. Moreover, apologies fail to generate political support compared to denials, even in cases when voters are exposed to evidence. This suggests that in most cases apologies are simply not politically viable communication strategies.

• Simonovits, G., Szucs, F., Hamrak, B. (2025). Door to door campaigns in an electoral autocracy: Evidence from Hungary. The Journal of Politics. ARTICLE
  Abstract

  To what extent can opposition parties in hybrid regimes persuade voters? Although door-to-door campaigning is a frequently used technique by parties, we lack scholarly evidence on their effectiveness in mobilizing voters — especially in nondemocratic contexts. In electoral autocracies, on-the-ground campaigns might prove especially important due to the inequality between parties' media access and resources. In this study, we estimate the impact of a Hungarian opposition party's canvassing efforts for the 2019 European Parliament election relying on granular data and precise information about how party activists were allocated to geographical units. We find that the party's campaign led to a roughly 1-percentage point (about 15% of the standard deviation) increase compared to its previous vote share. At the same time, we also demonstrate that the campaign seemed to hurt other opposition parties instead of the governing party, highlighting the possible challenges that opposition parties face in electoral autocracies.

• Hamrak, B. (2025). Identity After the Ballot: How winning and losing impact partisan identity and affective polarization. Electoral Studies. ARTICLE
  Abstract

  How do election outcomes shape partisan affective polarization? Drawing on theories of group identity, I examine how winning or losing elections affects partisan attitudes. Election outcomes can change partisans' perceived out-group threat and in-group status at the same time. These mechanisms lead to ambivalent predictions for the affective polarization of both winners and losers. In a series of randomized survey experiments from the United States (n = 7,188), I measure in- and out-party attitudes before and after hypothetical scenarios of election outcomes. I find no evidence that losing elections increases affective polarization. While losers' out-party evaluations remain stable, winners show warmer in-party feelings. This suggests that elections lead to winner gratification rather than loser backlash. These findings challenge common concerns about the losers' consent in democracies — at least when it comes to the emotional effects of election outcomes among the mass public.

• Hamrak, B., Simonovits, G. & Szucs, F. (2024). Equilibrium communication in political scandals. European Journal of Political Economy. ARTICLE
  Abstract

  We present a formal model in which elite communication and voters' beliefs during a political scandal emerge as a communication equilibrium, determined by the severity of the accusations and the degree of media scrutiny. The prediction of our model is that incumbents' use of denials can garner support even when they face the possibility of evidence showing their guilt. In contrast, public apologies increase approval – compared to denial – only when accusations are not very serious and are likely to be proved. Results from a large survey experiment corroborate these predictions. In order to explore how changes in the information environment shapes the communication equilibrium, we estimate the structural parameters of our model and conduct counterfactual simulations. We find that increasing media scrutiny leads to asymmetric effects on incumbent communication with politicians who are the best at covering up evidence actually benefiting from increased scrutiny.

• 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. ARTICLE MEDIA
  Abstract

  Right-wing populist leaders have long vilified left-wing activist George Soros to justify their policies. They accuse Soros and his organisations of being globalist elites who attack national sovereignty and traditional family values. The accusations themselves are loaded with antisemitic tropes. Despite this, it is unclear whether these populist, anti-elite messages effectively persuade citizens, or if antisemitic appeals specifically drive their impact. To answer these questions, we conduct a survey experiment in Hungary mimicking the Hungarian government's propaganda, which sometimes uses Soros as a symbol to mobilise support. We show that a random Soros' endorsement reduced policy support among pro-government respondents but increased it among anti-government ones. This suggests that Soros-bashing serves as a partisan cue in populist communication, helping to shape constituent preferences. However, overt antisemitic priming did not amplify the effects of Soros cues on policy preferences. These findings highlight the potential and limits of populist elite cueing.

• Mintal, J. M., Butzlaff, F., Hamrak, B., Vancel, R., Borsekova, K. Forthcoming How Identity Fragmentation Complicates Voter-Party Congruence. European Journal of Political Research.

Working Papers

Citizen accountability and representation:

• Status quo bias drives public support for drug policy in the United States (with Gabor Simonovits) R&R in Nature Human Behaviour
  Abstract

  Substance regulation in the United States is in a crisis. This report explores whether seemingly misaligned policies contradict public preferences or reflect biased citizen opinions. Using survey data (N=5,053) we show that policy outcomes align with public opinion. We further demonstrate that regulatory preferences are driven by status quo bias: support for the legality of legal substances exceeds that for hypothetical drugs with corresponding properties (∆median drug = 23.75, 95% CI [20.73, 27.18]), while the opposite holds for illegal drugs (∆median drug = 12.90, 95% CI [-15.79, -10.51]). Randomly assigning individuals to information about harm attenuates the status quo bias in the case of legal substances (∆median drug = −17.70, 95% CI[-21.47,-13.93]), but not for illegal ones. We discuss limits on public control over drug policies.

• From Presidential Palace to Potholes: Does Female Leadership Spur Women's Local Political Engagement? (with Daniel Kovarek) R&R
  Abstract

  We examine whether electing female leaders increases women's political engagement. While existing research emphasizes descriptive representation's effects on attitudes and stated preferences, little is known about behavioral outcomes. Using a unique dataset from Slovakia, we measure women's actual civic participation in a continuous fashion via the online platform Odkaz pre starostu, where citizens report local issues (N = 92,493). We infer user gender through an established machine classification method, leveraging the fact that most users use real names. Applying a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design, we identify the effect of Zuzana Caputova's 2019 election as Slovakia's first female president on the baseline gender gap in problem reports. Our results reveal a roughly 10 percentage-point rise in the weekly share of female submissions immediately after the election. These findings provide rare behavioral evidence that descriptive representation can foster political engagement.

• Evaluating a Backsliding Democracy: Lay Perceptions vs. Experts Assessments in Hungary (with Alexander Bor)
  Abstract

  Citizens are often regarded as the ultimate guardians of democracy, yet questions remain about their ability and willingness to fulfill this role. Citizens may ignore, forget, or fail to encounter information about subversion – especially because many backsliding democracies are characterized by media capture, polarized media environments, political alienation and apathy. Are citizens aware of various democratic norms and institutions come under attack? This study shifts the focus to granular perceptions about the norms of electoral democracy as a critical component of democratic commitment employing Hungary as a critical case of a backsliding democracy. We translate V-Dem's all 23 subjective indicators of electoral democracy into accessible items and ask respondents to evaluate their country's democratic standing using a representative survey (N = 1187). We explore whether these assessments align with expert evaluations and how partisan identity, affective polarization, and demographic variables shape perceptions. We also quantify how each of these indicators contribute to perceptions of the country's democraticness in general. Our findings show that on average citizens are fairly close to experts on most democratic indicators. Low education, being opposed to the government, and being affectively polarized increase the odds that a respondent underestimate the quality of democracy in Hungary.

Partisan identity:

• Football and Out-Party Animosity: Testing the Common In-Group Theory Using Everyday Real Events
• Partisan Favoritism or Democratic Vigilance? 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)

Contact

Feel free to reach out by email, find me on Bluesky, or browse my work on Google Scholar.