Hanna Folsz

Welcome! I am a 5th-year PhD Candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. My research focuses on party politics and the challenges and opportunities in countering threats to democracy in East-Central Europe. How must different actors engage in politics to help reverse democratic erosion? What prevents them from doing so? Guided by these questions, my dissertation examines opposition parties’ campaign strategies and messaging in Hungary and Poland. My work applies modern causal inference, text analysis, and geospatial techniques.

I grew up in Budapest, Hungary and moved to the UK for the first half of my studies. There, I completed a B.A. in Economics and Politics at Durham University and an MSc in Political Science and Political Economy at the London School of Economics. Beyond English and Hungarian, I speak Polish, Spanish, French, and German.

I co-organize EEPGW, the East European Politics Graduate Workshop. At Stanford, I am a member of PovGov (Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab) and DPL (Democracy and Polarization Lab).

If you have any questions about my research, doing a political science PhD, or anything else, please email me at hfolsz@stanford.edu.