{
  "abstract": "Empathy is invoked as a response to conflict and social fragmentation, yet political and public policy research has largely treated it as an individual or interpersonal phenomenon. This article develops a process-oriented account of collective empathy as a socially and politically mediated phenomenon through which empathy towards others becomes collectively shared, publicly reinforced, institutionally mediated, and politically consequential. We propose a scaffolding framework comprising three interacting mechanisms: bottom-up activation and aggregation, horizontal diffusion, and top-down legitimation. We argue that the configuration and interaction of these mechanisms shape the durability of collective empathy: mutual reinforcement facilitates stabilization, whereas limited reinforcement or conflict among these mechanisms produces episodic or fragmented trajectories. Structured empirical illustrations from refugee politics, post-conflict reconciliation, and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the framework’s empirical plausibility. The framework explains why intense empathic responses may remain temporary while more modest orientations can become durable through communicative and institutional reinforcement.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Reichman University",
    "University of Southern Denmark",
    "Deakin University"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Moshe Maor",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0411-2977"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Peter Starke",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0837-7553"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Claire Yorke",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2446-5518"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8v8hbv9nxr5rv.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.23589980",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "8v8hbv9nxr5rv",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://zenodo.org/records/23589980",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/23589980/files/PROTEMO_Publication_Maor%20Starke%20Yorke.pdf/content",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-23",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8v8hbv9nxr5rv.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-06T12:20:45Z",
      "native_id": "23589980",
      "source": "zenodo",
      "url": "https://zenodo.org/records/23589980"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [],
  "title": "Collective Empathy in Politics and Public Policy: Toward a Scaffolding Framework",
  "title_text": "Collective Empathy in Politics and Public Policy: Toward a Scaffolding Framework",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T12:20:45Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8v8hbv9nxr5rv",
  "venue": "Zenodo",
  "versions": []
}