Welcome!

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

About me

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna. I research how political institutions and norms influence 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

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
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
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., Simonovits, G. & Szucs, F. (2024). Equilibrium communication in political scandals. European Journal of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102580
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

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 at Nature Human Behaviour
From Presidential Palace to Potholes: Does Female Leadership Spur Women’s Local Political Engagement? (with Daniel Kovarek) Under review
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)