Staff

Dr. Péter Krekó
Executive director

Political scientist, social psychologist, disinformation expert. He is a senior fellow at the Washington-based CEPA think tank and a PopBack Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Earlier, he was a guest researcher at the Europe’s Futures - Ideas for Action program of the Vienna-based Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), and a non-resident Associate Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna Institute of Policy Research. Peter is an associate professor with habilitation at the Department of Social Psychology at ELTE PPK. During 2016-2017, Péter worked as a Fulbright Visiting Professor in the United States at the Central Eurasian Studies Department of Indiana University. He wrote his PhD dissertation on the social psychology of conspiracy theories in 2014, and he habilitated in 2020. He has been the executive director of Political Capital since 2011. His main areas of expertise are disinformation, Russian political influence in the West, and European populism and radicalism. He was the co-chair of the EU Radicalization Prevention Network PREVENT until 2015. He is the owner of Political Capital. He has written two books: Tömegparanoia, which has been published in two editions, introduces the social psychological foundations of fake news and conspiracy theories in a scientific and informative manner, and The Hungarian Far Right – which he wrote together with Attila Juhász – on the politics of the Hungarian far right after the democratic transition. The latter is published by Ibiden Verlag and distributed by the Columbia University Press.

Katalin Szitás
Operative director

Katalin is a political scientist, who completed her first degree at the Faculty of Law at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, where she also undertook doctoral studies. Prior to joining Political Capital, she worked at the Office of the Hungarian National Assembly (parliament) and at the Ministry of Justice. She has been with Political Capital since 2006. Alongside her analytical tasks, Katalin is responsible for directing the daily operation of the institute, event organisation, and media relations.

Bulcsú Hunyadi
Head of Programmes, Head of the Radicalisation and Extremism Programme

Bulcsú has worked at Political Capital since 2007. He has been a senior analyst since 2013 and then the head of the radicalisation and extremism programme. His main research interests include far-right and populist radical right actors and narratives, hostility towards minority groups and radicalisation prevention. Besides, he has worked on foreign policy issues, the state of civil society in Hungary and civic education. Bulcsú has led or participated in many of our research projects, authored or co-authored many of our studies and articles, and is regularly featured in the national and international media. He studied history, sociology and international relations at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the Andrássy University Budapest. He participated in numerous scholarships including the International Parliamentary Scholarship of the German Bundestag, the Civic Education in Action programme of the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Robert Bosch Stiftung Germany. He is fluent in English and German.

Richárd Demény
Analyst

He obtained a BSc degree in Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton and subsequently pursued an MSc degree in European and International Public Policy at the London School of Economics. He gained professional experience at the European Commission, Policy Solutions, and the British Embassy in Budapest. His research primarily focuses on Hungarian politics and the European Union.

Hanna Faludi
Communications officer

Hanna studied Communication and Media Studies at Budapest Metropolitan University. She then received an MA degree at ELTE in International Studies, specialising in development policy. After her studies, she started working as a junior commercial coordinator at Sony Pictures Entertainment Central Europe. Hanna is responsible for communication and event management at the institute.

Lóránt Győri
Geopolitical analyst

Lóránt is a sociologist and political analyst, with a masters in social sciences from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, where he is currently continuing his PhD studies. His research interests include geopolitics, new media, network analysis, discourse analysis, and science-, youth- and urban sociology. His analysis is focused on current Russian influence in Europe, and he is co-author of several studies on this topic.

Zsuzsa Kelen
Analyst

Zsuzsa has studied psychopedagogy, hungarian literature and linguistics and ethnic and minority studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She gained professional experiences at various NGO-s and small companies in Hungary. At Political Capital, she works primarily in the program focusing on radicalism and extremism.

Róbert László
Election expert

Robert earned his university degrees from the University of Economics and Public Administration of Budapest (2004) and Corvinus University (2009). He is a professor in the electoral programme at the National University of Public Service, Budapest. Robert’s research speciality is the Hungarian electoral system, and he is the leader of Political Capital’s initiatives in this area.

Csaba Molnár
Head of research, quantitative analyst

Csaba Molnár holds a bachelor degree in physics from Berzsenyi Daniel College, Hungary and a masters in mathematics from Eötvös Loránd University, where he also studied programming and computer science. With this background, Csaba is perfectly suited to develop the methodologies for Political Capital’s research projects with his extensive knowledge of data processing software (for instance: R, SPSS, MS Excel). He is also involved in quantitative analysis and the modelling of political and societal processes, creating indices, data visualisation, and social media analysis.

Ráchel Surányi
Project coordinator, analyst

Rachel has a PhD in sociology from ELTE. During her studies, she took part in several EU projects and volunteered at various NGOs such as Haver, Menedék, and Artemisszió. Her research interests include minority identification, intercultural relations, media analysis, migration, and Jewish studies. She employs both qualitative and quantitative research techniques.

Veronika Szontagh
Analyst

Minority policy expert, criminologist. She earned her university degree from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). Veronika is a PhD candidate at ELTE’s doctoral school, her research topic focuses on hate crime and victim blaming. She gained her professional experience in various academic researches. At Political Capital, she works primarily in the program focusing on radicalism and extremism.