Collective Empathy in Politics and Public Policy: Toward a Scaffolding Framework
- 1Reichman University
- 2University of Southern Denmark
- 3Deakin University
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.
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BibTeX
@misc{maor2026collective,
title = {{Collective Empathy in Politics and Public Policy: Toward a Scaffolding Framework}},
author = {Moshe Maor and Peter Starke and Claire Yorke},
howpublished = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23589980},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/23589980},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Collective Empathy in Politics and Public Policy: Toward a Scaffolding Framework
AU - Moshe Maor
AU - Peter Starke
AU - Claire Yorke
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - Zenodo
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23589980
UR - https://zenodo.org/records/23589980
AB - 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.
ER -