The concept of affective citizenship focuses on citizenship as a process deeply involving human affections (Di Gregorio & Merolli, 2017). In this perspective, the term affection refers to a broad category encompassing emotions and feelings, including sensory and embodied ones that enable us to explore and give meaning to the surrounding world (Ahmed, 2014; Fortier, 2017). Affective citizenship entails a careful consideration of how certain feelings attach themselves to the concept of citizenship, such as the sense of belonging, legitimacy or protection (Fortier, 2010). It is a transformative and critical approach that recognises that emotional relationships contribute to the formation of identities and the role played by affect in the negotiation of social meanings (Mookherjee, 2005). Affective citizenship emerges as a social bound generated by shared experiences, this is especially the case of common experience of suffering. The response and resistance to the experience of oppression generate the construction of new belongings and shapes scope to action instigating a plurality of values (Mookherjee, 2005).

Affective communities are social formations that develop through collectivisation and social integration processes, lying between the idea of a rational society and the notion of an emotionally attached community (Zink, 2019). They are defined and distinguished by their shared feelings and/or understandings of the world or particular event, being able to relate individuals to one another as they draw and bound people together (Hutchison, 2016; Zink, 2019). By sharing the same worries and goals and setting aside their differences (Zink, 2019), these individuals form strong affective connections, with their innate human need to belong and be part of a group being fulfilled (Topinka, 2025; Yun, 2021). Affective communities can serve a wide range of purposes, such as offering solidarity through welcoming, empathy, and mutual support; sharing and bringing to light problems that have been silenced; or serving as a political tool, fighting and resisting violence perpetuated by the state (Rovira-Sancho, 2023; von Poser & Willamowski, 2020).

Affective discursive practices are relational and coordinated performances in which affect and discourse are entwined in the construction of social meaning (Potter & Wetherell, 1987). A derivation of Margaret Wetherell's (2012) affective practice theory, the term marks the social, contextual, and patterned character of sentiments in texts and discourses over individualist models of psychology. Under this model, affect is called into existence as a key component of discursive construction, instantiating day-to-day practices that are imbricated culturally and politically (Tormis et al., 2024; Wetherell et al., 2015). Affective discursive practices generate relationship dynamics of nearness and distancing that deploy the sentiments judiciously in a series of contexts such as in branding, in politics or in personal relationships (Flubacher, 2022). These practices reveal the particulars of the way the discourse invoking and ordering affect gives a meaning that is social and normative (Hyvönen, 2024; McMain, 2022).

Affective intelligence theory focuses on the “association of emotional reactions to information-seeking and decision-making processes” (Marcus et al., 2019, p. 110). According to Lee and Choi (2018), this theory explains the relation between emotions and cognitions, which claims that emotions are important for understanding cognitive processes. Arguing that heterogeneous emotions lead to different information processing pathways, Marcus et al. (2019) conclude that emotional experience may act as “the foundation of all information processing, decision-making, and behavior” (p. 114) because they can occur preconsciously. The theory has been extensively applied to different political contexts, namely to study how social viewing on presidential debates influences emotions and how these linkages affect tolerance for opposing views (Lee & Choi, 2018); how emotions influence audience decision-making processes and perceptions of government agencies (Maor et al., 2025); how anxiety moderates the positive association between accepting restrictive measures during crisis and political trust (Casiraghi et al., 2025); or how emotional distress moderates the underlying mechanism between voting choice and the public’s anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs (Lin et al., 2025).

Bargetz and Eggers (2025) explain that the concept affective narratives captures the multidimensional entanglement of narrating and feeling in the political. Hoggett and Thompson (2012) highlight that an important characteristic for political meaning in affective narratives is the ability to relate the particular to the general, in other words, they should refer to public interests. Bargetz and Eggers (2023) also specify that affective narratives are an important approach to “political mediation that operates both in the paradigm of a politics of feeling and in the paradigm of feeling politics” by “capturing moods, providing imaginaries, fostering identifications, and negotiating attachments” (p.221). Freistein and Gadinger (2019) mention that these narratives transmit emotional content and provide emotional guidance, that leads to the creation of identities around the content and emotions alike. Bargetz and Eggers (2023, 2025) make the analytical distinction on how affective narratives accentuate the affectivity of: 1) the story: creating tension, presenting figures of identification and generating emoticons; 2) the audience addressed: space for imagination, identification and attachment; and 3) the narrators: framing affective orientation by offering identification through integrating their stories.

Social representations are produced through anchoring and objectivation (Moliner & Abric, 2015; Moscovici, 1998). Anchoring refers to the process of using the familiar, that is, existing knowledge (categories of meanings, concepts, and/or images), as a frame of reference to attribute meanings to unknown objects or events (Moliner & Abric, 2015; Moscovici, 1998). Thus, anchoring facilitates the integration of new information in to the existing pool or system of meanings, which is defined by groups, simultaneously changing the old and the new (Hakoköngäs & Sakki, 2016; Moliner & Abric, 2015; Moscovici, 1998; Vala & Castro, 2017). Researchers have used the concept of anchoring to study stigma, media frames, and public responses to crises and change, applying methods such as content analysis, word association, comparative studies, and thematic analysis (Jodelet, 2008).

Attitude polarisation is defined as the process by which individuals or groups with distinct attitudes or viewpoints become more extreme over time instead of reaching a consensus (Benoît & Dubra, 2014; PytlikZillig et al., 2018). This often occurs when people are exposed to the same or new arguments that allow them to become more confident in their views (Benoît & Dubra, 2014). People interpret information based on their pre-existing beliefs; this process is called biased assimilation. This interpretation tends to resonate with their identity, morals, and values, an effect called moralisation of attitudes (D’Amore et al., 2021; Lord et al., 1979). In group settings, these attitudes can be amplified when individuals encounter others who share similar views, as discussion and deliberations often strengthen their pre-existing positions rather than leading to a more moderate one (PytlikZillig et al., 2018; Wojcieszak, 2011). This polarisation is more evident in people with more pronounced attitudes and beliefs than in people with more neutral opinions, and especially when individuals are exposed to emotionally charged, moralised, or identity-related issues (D’Amore et al., 2021; Gestefeld et al., 2022).

Categorisation is the process of organising information into categories based on shared attributes, facilitating rapid responses to stimuli. Categories trade-off between economy and informativeness: fewer, broader categories are more economical but less informative, and people's situational goals may influence their preference for one approach over the other (Fiske & Morling, 1996). Categorisation creates the perception of dissimilarity between ingroup and outgroup and similarity within each group (Turner, 1985). We tend to perceive greater similarities within each category and more pronounced differences between different categories (Tajfel & Wilkes, 1963). Social identities are complex and multifaceted, including ethnicity, nationality, gender, and religion. In a multicultural world, awareness of these affiliations can be challenging. Explanation-based views of categorisation describe it in terms of the perceived similarity of instances to one another or to an abstract prototype (Fiske & Morling, 1996). While social categorisation is essential for perception and behaviour, it can also lead to intergroup conflicts, especially in highly polarised societies (Brewer, 2001). To fully understand categorisation, it is crucial to adopt a critical and interdisciplinary approach, integrating Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Cultural Studies, to examine the interactions between various identity dimensions and their social implications (Crisp & Hewstone, 2007).

Citizenship represents a complex and continually evolving relationship between individuals and the political communities to which they belong. Historically, it described the formal bond between a person and the state, an arrangement that granted civic, political, and social rights while also demanding participation, respect for law, and contribution to the common good (Hulme, 2019). Over time, however, this view has expanded. Contemporary scholars emphasise that citizenship is no longer a static legal status but a lived and negotiated practice through which people express belonging, claim inclusion, and exercise agency within civic and political spaces (Finotelli et al., 2024; Witte & Peters, 2025). It thus includes more than legal entitlements: it involves ongoing processes of recognition and identification that fuse juridical membership with social and emotional dimensions of community life (Aneesh, 2025). At the same time, citizenship remains ambivalent and contested. Exclusionary boundaries and unequal access continue to shape who may participate fully, particularly among migrants, refugees, and marginalised groups (Ziss, 2023; Nagle, 2022). Taken together, nowadays, citizenship functions as a dynamic framework of membership, participation and shared responsibility, linking local attachments to wider networks of global interdependence.

Collective emotions are manifestations of widely shared feelings that stem from pursuing group interests and emotions (Sullivan, 2015) and are often elicited by a significant event or object (PLEDGE, 2024). Shared feelings that arise from group interests and actions differ from individual emotions as they stem from acting and feeling together as a group. These emotions require a feedback loop with other ingroup members and align with the concept of public mood, influencing political changes and reforms (Kingdon & Stano, 1984). They interact with emotions felt by individuals on behalf of groups they identify with (Ray et al., 2014). Unlike individual emotions, collective emotions do not always necessitate personal involvement in the events causing these feelings, as seen with collective guilt over national transgressions. Commitment to collective emotions creates a sense of obligation, making it difficult for individuals to disengage without facing reproach from the group (Gilbert, 2015).

Collective identity, also referred to as group identity, is fundamentally an individual's deep association with a larger collectivity. The essence of collective identity resides in a shared, interactive sense of we-ness and collective agency (Snow & Corrigall-Brown, 2015). The individual’s connection with a broader community emerges from the members' shared interests, experiences, and goals, often fostered through collaboration. Furthermore, collective identity refers to how an individual identifies with a group and perceives him/herself as part of that social category, reflecting the perception of cohesiveness with and belongingness to certain social groups (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, as cited in Wang et al., 2023). When individuals define themselves as members of a social group, they treat the common attributes of that group as their own (Wang et al., 2023), increasing their awareness of we. Therefore, collective identity is an abstract category that encompasses more narrowly definable concepts like group identity, cultural identity, or regional identity, as well as historically specific community formations such as nations, tribes, social classes or political movements.

Discrimination refers to the unequal or unfavourable treatment of individuals based on their perceived membership to a social group (Brewer, 2017; Guimond, 2023). Discrimination manifests in observable behaviours and social practices (Guimond, 2023). Research on discrimination has evolved from the civil rights era and legal studies of the 1960s to contemporary psychological models grounded in social identity and social categorisation theories (Colella et al., 2017). Although conceptually related, discrimination can occur without explicit prejudice, as social norms and institutional mechanisms may sustain unequal treatment (Guimond, 2023). Motivationally, discriminatory acts serve to maintain social hierarchies and protect dominant group advantages (Bezzon, 2024). Several forms exist: social discrimination such as ingroup favouritism, outgroup discrimination, and outgroup favouritism (Brewer, 2017), workplace discrimination (Jones & Arena, 2017), overt discrimination, and institutional discrimination, which is embedded in organisational practices and social structures (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).

Disinformation refers to false, inaccurate, manipulated or misleading information deliberately created and distributed with the intent to cause harm, namely in the pursuit of profit, political or ideological goals (High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation [HLEG], 2018). It may be presented in a journalistic form, as fake news (Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019) or others, such as manipulated visual content, fake followers or organised trolling (HLEG, 2018). This phenomenon is facilitated by a growing mistrust in democratic institutions and the press (Bennett & Livingston, 2018; Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019) and, at the same time, increasing disinformation and fake news are a danger for democracy itself (Loveless, 2021). It takes on alarming proportions when this problematic information is highlighted, amplified and automated through online networks and computational systems, thereby making it difficult to determine the agents’ degree of intent, either at the creation or distribution level, and consequently, to distinguish it from misinformation (Jack, 2017).

Following cognitive appraisal theory, emotion refers to the experience an individual has when being exposed to an external stimulus that is appraised as relevant for the individual’s well-being and goals (Moors et al., 2013; Scherer, 2005; Smith & Lazarus, 1993). An emotion results in behavioural responses (Frijda, 1988; Lerner & Keltner, 2000; Schmidt-Atzert, et al., 2014,). These action tendencies (Scherer, 2005) can vary greatly in duration and intensity. Hence, they are conscious mental states that involve cognitive as well as affective processes. Especially in political science research, appraisal theory is a popular approach to conceptualise emotion as the emphasis on cognition sits well with the role and significance of emotions in regard to political behaviour.

Emotional biases are systematic distortions in how people perceive, evaluate, and respond to information, shaping what they notice, remember and decide, often pulling attention toward emotionally charged or mood-congruent stimuli (Patchitt et al., 2023). Research in neuroscience shows that these biases stem from dynamic interactions between limbic regions and prefrontal control systems, which together regulate interoceptive awareness and emotional judgment (Tsui et al., 2024). When stress, anxiety, or fatigue alter these networks, people may recall more negative events or react disproportionately to threat cues (Rodheim et al., 2024; Espinosa et al., 2025). Beyond clinical settings, emotional biases also shape economic and social behaviour, guiding investors and decision-makers toward choices that feel emotionally safe rather than logically optimal (Kumar & Chaurasia, 2023). Emotional bias can be seen as a cross-domain mechanism linking emotion and cognition, a process that helps explain how feelings quietly steer both mental health and real-world judgment.

The study of emotional dynamics provides an essential framework for understanding how emotions develop over time and influence the specific psychological and social well-being of an individual within the temporal and physical context in which they are situated (Kuppens & Verduyn, 2015). The notion of emotional dynamics encompasses several aspects. Emotions are defined by subjective experiences and are contingent upon internal or external events, implying that they are shaped by circumstances and relevant environmental or personal stimuli at any given moment, resulting from changes or events in the surrounding environment (Mesquita & Boiger, 2014; Parkinson & Manstead, 2015). Emotions are influenced by both internal (thoughts, personal perceptions) and external contexts and interactions (social events, environmental conditions), contributing to dynamic features such as the duration of emotional episodes, variability, and the synchronisation across different emotional states over time (Waugh et al., 2015). From a sociological perspective (Jasper, 2018), by distinguishing between short-, medium- and long-term emotions, dynamics result from the interaction of different temporalities and within social, cultural and political perspectives and action (Turner & Stets, 2005).

Emotional entrepreneurs are defined as “individual and collective actors that attempt to advance a political and/or policy agenda by regulating expected or actual emotions generated during political and policy processes” (Maor & Gross, 2015, p. 4). Emotional entrepreneurs rely on emotional manipulation, that is, the use of strategies to regulate the emotional experiences, expressions and behaviours of others for their interest or benefit. They also engage more broadly in emotional regulation, that is “the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions” (Gross 1998, p.275). While the study of emotional regulation had previously focused primarily on psychological processes at the individual level, this novel perspective introduces the level of the political system and of world politics.

Emotional exclusion or marginalisation is a multidimensional experience that, as an emerging construct, has been conceptualised in diverse ways within the literature. It has been framed as loneliness (Chung et al., 2019), as a profound and painful experience of neglect and lived verbal aggression (Craig et al., 2016), as the perception of diminished self-worth within a relationship or group (Fung et al., 2016; Li et al., 2025), and as encompassing negative affective states such as fear, frustration, and insecurity (Humm et al., 2020), particularly among marginalised individuals and groups. Accordingly, it may be defined as the emotional experience arising from the deprivation or thwarting of fundamental emotional needs, resulting in psychological distress (Capelos et al., 2024).

Emotional framing is the “presentation of information in ways that arouse feelings of alignment with the audience’s passions, desires and aspirations” (Giorgi, 2017, p. 717). To frame means “to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described" (Entman, 1993, p. 52). Research on emotional framing investigates whether previously induced emotional states change the individual’s susceptibility to a news frame (Druckman & McDermott, 2008; Tenenbaum et al., 2018; Witte & Allen, 2000), and what emotional reactions are generated by exposure to different frames (Lecheler et al. 2013; Nabi et al. 2018; Puthillam, et al. 2021).

Emotional manipulation refers to the use of strategies to regulate the emotional experiences, expressions, and behaviour of others for one’s own self-interest or benefit. Notable emotion manipulation strategies include embedding emotional appeals in political messaging (Young &Miller, 2023), using for example, imagery and music (Brader, 2006; Fowler & Ridout, 2013; Gadarian, 2014; Huddy & Gunnthorsdottir, 2000; Ryan & Krupnikov, 2021); framing issues with appeals to social groups or moral values (Clifford, 2019; Gross & Wronski, 2021; Lipsitz, 2018); and signalling emotions to partisan supporters (McHugo et al., 1985; Stapleton & Dawkins, 2022). Emotional manipulation is thus an expedient tool for a variety of political actors, above all the emotional (policy) entrepreneur.

Emotional needs are psychological and emotional requirements crucial for a person to form secure attachments with others and cultivate a healthy sense of self and identity (Maslow, 1943; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Emotional needs include, among others, emotional security (feeling of being safe) and attachment (affective bonds) (Bowlby, 1982), and also belonging (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Furthermore, according to the self-determination theory, there are three interrelated emotional needs, specifically autonomy, competence and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2000): the need to feel in control of one’s own actions and decisions, the need to feel skilled/effective and the need to feel connected to and cared by others; respectively. Emotional regulation (acknowledging and accepting another person’s feelings as real and understandable) and validation (the process of managing one’s own emotions) are also emotional fundamental needs (Herr et al., 2015). Emotional needs are fundamental human requirements for mental and emotional well-being which means that when any of the considered emotional needs are not fulfilled, individuals experience emotional distress influencing individual well-being as well as societal stability.

Emotional policy entrepreneurs are individuals, groups, and institutions that deliberately employ emotional regulation strategies in order to achieve their political goals and/or agenda (Maor, 2024; Maor & Gross, 2015). Similarly to emotional entrepreneurs, emotional policy entrepreneurs employ emotional manipulation tools alongside other strategies, such as salami tactics (Zahariadis, 2003), in pursuit of their policy goals. This is possible due to the strong impact emotions have on people’s attitudes, perceptions, decision-making, political behaviour, public opinion, and many other aspects, making them an important tool for persuading others (Dowding, 2018; Gross, 1998; Maor, 2016, 2024; Maor & Gross, 2015). By engaging in extrinsic regulation, political actors attempt to increase or decrease the intensity, duration, and/or quality of emotions (Gross, 1998; Maor, 2024; Maor & Gross, 2015) so that they can draw attention and resources to their cause (Arnold, 2022; Dowding, 2018; Maor, 2024). These processes can be conscious or unconscious, automatic or controlled (Gross, 1998), and make emotional policy entrepreneurs more effective in mobilising initial support than policy entrepreneurs who ignore emotions. However, in the long run, they tend to face more resistance and may be seen as manipulative (Maor, 2024; Maor & Gross, 2015). A successful emotional regulation is capable of influencing interactions in political groups and between politicians and voters, as well as shaping political behaviour as a whole, public policies, and interest group activities (Maor & Gross, 2015).

An emotional reaction is a temporary psychophysiological response associated with a stimulus considered relevant to an individual's goals, beliefs, or well-being. It represents a brief, immediate functional state that integrates changes in subjective experience, physiological arousal, and expressive behaviour (Adolphs & Andler, 2018; Levenson, 2014). These reactions result from cognitive evaluation processes that define the personal meaning of an event, shaping subsequent motivation and preparing the organism for adaptive action (Frijda et al., 2000; Smith & Lazarus, 1990). From a constructivist perspective, emotional reactions originate in fundamental affective dimensions, such as valence and arousal, which are subsequently classified as distinct emotional experiences (Barrett, 2006; Russell, 2003). Alternatively, theories of fundamental emotions argue that emotional reactions can constitute distinct groups of emotions, each with characteristic physiological and expressive patterns (Ekman, 1992; Levenson, 2014). Although coherence between experiential, behavioural, and physiological systems is common, it is not mandatory and may vary depending on context and individual differences (Gross, 2014; Mauss et al., 2005). Ultimately, emotional reactions are an essential mechanism of human adaptation, directing attention, decision-making, and social behaviour.

Emotional triggers refer to psychological stimuli that provoke automatic and intense emotional responses, often disproportionate to the event that causes them. These stimuli can be internal, such as memories and thoughts, or external, such as words, images, or sounds, and can activate past personal narratives, which are often unresolved, influencing behaviours and decisions subconsciously (Jerab, 2025). The intensity of the automatic emotional and physiological reactions activated by a stimulus depends more on the subjective meaning attributed to it by each person, than on the stimulus itself. According to Abramowitz and Berenbaum (2007), in clinical psychology, they are often associated with emotional responses such as anger, sadness, or anxiety, and can trigger impulsive or compulsive behaviours in individuals with emotional regulation difficulties. Strategies such as self-observation, cognitive restructuring, and mindfulness allow identifying patterns of reactivity and developing more adaptive responses, which helps promote emotional self-regulation (Gross, 2015; Linehan, 1993).

False consensus effect is described as a tendency for people to assume their own beliefs, emotions and behaviours are more widely shared by others than they actually are. In everyday life, this bias can appear when someone treats personal experience as the social norm, thinking that most others see things my way and such an overgeneralisation shape how people interpret events, reinforcing what they already believe (Coleman, 2019; Sabini et al., 2001). Research suggests that this bias often offers a form of psychological reassurance because, by imagining agreement, individuals maintain a sense of belonging and self-confidence even when opinions can differ (Deutsch, 1983; de la Haye, 2000). Studies also show that the false consensus effect emerges in political, moral and interpersonal contexts, so it can heighten polarisation when groups assume their stance is universally accepted (Mannarini et al., 2021; Vandeweerdt, 2020). Additionally, emotional reactions, such as anger or defensiveness, can intensify this bias, producing overconfidence and misjudgement of others’ motives (Russell & Arms, 1995; Yinon et al., 1981). The false consensus effect shows that social perception is repeatedly shaped by the comforting illusion of consensus, instead of evidence.

Feelings are conscious mental representations of the body’s internal condition, characterised by an inherent valence of pleasure or discomfort (Alia-Klein et al., 2019; Carvalho & Damasio, 2021; Damasio, 2001; Damasio & Carvalho, 2013; Panksepp, 2010). They signal both basic homeostatic states like hunger and pain and emotionally driven states such as fear, which as a result motivate and guide behaviour to correct imbalances or sustain well-being (Damasio & Carvalho, 2013; Carvalho & Damasio, 2021). This conscious awareness provides a subjective window into physiological changes, which allow humans to learn from past events and anticipate future needs, thus adding a flexible, regulatory layer to automatic bodily mechanisms (Damasio & Carvalho, 2013). It is important to distinguish these private, subjective feelings from the publicly observable patterns of emotion since these two concepts are so closely related, even though both share an evolutionary heritage across mammals as tools for survival (Damasio, 2001; Panksepp, 2010). In essence, feelings are valanced representations of bodily changes that both reflect and directly shape adaptive behaviour (Carvalho & Damasio, 2021; Damasio, 2001; Damasio & Carvalho, 2013; Panksepp, 2010).

In political psychology, framing refers to the process through which specific aspects of an event, issue, or policy are selectively highlighted in order to shape how individuals interpret, evaluate, and emotionally respond to that topic (Andsager, 2000; Gross, 2008; Gross & d’Ambrosio, 2004). Related literature distinguishes between several analytically distinct dimensions. First, equivalence framing, also known as gain–loss framing, involves presenting logically equivalent information in positive or negative terms, thereby influencing judgments and emotional reactions (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). In contrast, emphasis framing focuses on the selective salience of particular aspects of an issue, such as episodic versus thematic framing, which shape attributions of responsibility and emotional responses (Iyengar, 1991; Scheufele & Iyengar, 2014). Second, frames can be classified as issue-specific, applying to particular policy domains, or generic, transcending specific topics and recurring across different political contexts (de Vreese, 2005). Third, political communication research distinguishes between strategic (or game) framing, which emphasises political competition and actors’ motives, and issue framing, which highlights societal problems and policy solutions (Valentino et al., 2001). Finally, framing can operate through different modalities, including textual framing and visual framing, both of which can independently or jointly shape emotional responses and political attitudes (Brantner et al., 2011; Borah & Irom, 2021). Emotional processes are closely intertwined with framing effects, as emotions may either moderate framing effects when elicited prior to exposure or mediate them when induced through the frame itself (Lecheler et al., 2013, 2019).

The Geneva Emotion Wheel (GEW) is a self-report instrument designed to assess an individual’s emotional reactions to a variety of stimuli (Scherer et al., 2013; Shuman et al., 2012). The graphic has a circular design composed of 20 slices, each corresponding to a different emotion (Scherer, 2005). All sections of emotions are segmented into circles that serve as response-rating options to measure the intensity of the identified emotion, with larger circles toward the outer edge of the wheel indicating higher levels of intensity and smaller circles toward the centre indicating lower intensities (Shuman et al., 2012). Furthermore, the tool’s centre includes a circle associated with neutral or other emotions not already represented in the model, allowing individuals to express additional or unclassified emotional states (Coyne et al., 2020). The GEW is structured on two axes: valence (ranging from positive to negative emotions) across the horizontal axis and control or power (ranging from low to high) on the vertical axis, which organises emotions into four quadrants (Scherer et al., 2013; Simonazzi et al., 2021). These quadrants include negative/low control (sadness, guilt, regret, shame, disappointment), negative/high control (anger, hate, contempt, disgust, fear), positive/low control (compassion, relief, admiration, love, contentment), and positive/high control (interest, amusement, pride, joy, pleasure) (Scherer, 2005).

Group-based or vicarious emotions are emotions experienced by individuals due to their identification with a group, rather than personal experiences (Mackie et al., 2000). These emotions can be triggered by strengthening self-categorisation or making an emotion-inducing stimulus salient, as shown in studies where group identity or historical context heightened feelings of anger or guilt. They may target the ingroup, outgroup, specific group members, or even symbols and can manifest in response to protective policies, reflecting collective sentiments like anger, fear, or shame. These emotions may be activated and strengthened through two channels: 1) strengthening self-categorisation (Kuppens, et al, 2013), 2) making an emotion triggering stimulus salient (Imhoff et al., 2013). This type of emotions may appear in response to protective policies in multiple ways, and communication would be aimed at we: a) something happens to the whole group (Kanyangara et al., 2007); b) something happens to some members of the group; c) something happens to symbols of the group (Chen et al., 2020); d) change in the content of identity (Bar-Tal, 2000) or recategorisation into a different identity/making a different identity salient may impact emotions (Wohl & Branscombe, 2005).

Ingroup-outgroup conflicts can be defined as circumstances in which groups perceive each other as obstacles to their respective goals, creating a condition of negative interdependence rooted in systemic and functional relations between them (Sherif, 1966). Alternatively, these conflicts may arise primarily from incompatibility of goals or values between groups, suggesting that ideologies play a significant role (Böhm et al., 2018; Harel et al., 2019). Within this framework, ingroups consist of individuals who share a specific group membership, while outgroups are composed of those who do not (Böhm et al., 2018). In situations of intergroup conflict, strengthening one's own group is viewed as aggression by outsiders, while cooperating with outsiders is viewed as betrayal by one's own group (de Dreu, 2010). Consequently, perceptions (e.g., stereotyping), emotions (e.g., hate), and behaviours (e.g., aggression) of the individuals involved will be affected (Böhm et al., 2018). Wars between countries, clashes between ethnic and religious groups and even rivalries between groups of sport fans illustrate this phenomenon and show how uninvolved bystanders can also be impacted by ingroup-outgroup conflicts (Weisel & Böhm, 2015).

Individual emotions can be understood as episodic, relatively short-term, biologically-based patterns of perception, physiology, communication, action, and experience, which occur in response to specific physical and social challenges and opportunities (Keltner & Gross, 1999; Rafaeli & Worline, 2001). These systems of interrelated and multiple components arise in response to specific social and physical problems and opportunities (Frijda, 2009; Keltner & Gross, 1999), and these emotional responses can vary across individuals according to their specific personality, beliefs, genetics, experience, as well as their cognitive styles that influence their interpretation and evaluation of a situation, even when the emotional stimulus they face is the same (Frijda, 2009; Hamann & Canli, 2004; Winter & Kuiper, 1997). Therefore, individual emotions play an essential role in regulating and mediating the relation between the individual and the external environment, enabling adaptive responses (Keltner & Gross, 1999), and constituting important motivators of human behaviour (Fink et al., 2025).

Insecurity is a social construct with political meaning, which can be understood as the opposite of security, implying the presence of threat, danger, or risk (Huysman, 2006; Starke et al., 2025), or as resulting from the political framing of security issues (Huysman, 2006). Insecurity is multidimensional and can be objective or subjective, individual or collective (Béland, 2024; Starke et al., 2025). Regarding collective security, national and international security domains assume relevance (Huysman, 2006; Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2021). These can be framed as threatened by war, immigration, climate crises, and others (Huysman, 2006; Starke et al., 2025). Some groups experience more insecurity than others (Abreu et al., 2021; Sironi & Bonazzi, 2016; Starke et al., 2025). Additionally, political actors react differently to (in)security concerns (Starke et al., 2025). Political science and international relations scholars emphasise security as the primary state service, focusing on interstate and sub-war conflicts. Sociological research focuses on specialised knowledge and cultural interpretations of revolutions, terrorism, state violence against civilians, crime fears, migration, and gender violence (Abreu et al., 2021; Ali, 2019; Akyuz et al., 2023; Cantú-Martínez, 2023; Krulichová et al., 2024; Logan & Walker, 2021; Sironi & Bonazzi, 2016; Song et al., 2020; Uddin, 2024).

Intersectionality is a critical analytical framework that explores how social categories such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability interconnect to shape complex systems of privilege and oppression (Bowleg, 2020; Shields, 2020). Emerging from Black feminist thought, it was developed to address the limitations of single-dimension approaches that failed to reflect the lived experiences of Black women in social and political movements (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991). Rather than viewing identities as separate or additive, intersectionality conceptualises them as mutually constitutive and embedded within dynamic power relations (Misra et al., 2020). This framework exposes how interlocking social structures organise inequality, determining access to resources, representation, and justice, while challenging universalised conceptions of identity such as woman in feminist theory (Cho et al., 2013). As a contemporary, power-critical lens, intersectionality offers a nuanced understanding of how differences make a difference in sustaining or resisting systems of domination across contexts (Else-Quest & Hyde, 2022).

A consensual definition of minority group has not yet been achieved, namely in the context of international law and human rights (Nagy & Vizi, 2024; de Varennes, 2020). According to an objective criterion, minority groups are subgroups numerically inferior (less than half) to the rest of the (majority) population (Nagy & Vizi, 2024; de Varennes, 2020). This criterion is contested by some authors who argue in favour of subjective criteria because some minorities outnumber the majority (Wagley & Harris, 1958; Tajfel, 1978); occupy a subordinate societal position (Nagy & Vizi, 2024; Wagley & Harris, 1958); share characteristics that may include ethnicity, language, religion and culture (Nagy & Vizi, 2024; de Varennes, 2020) or physical appearance, which might result in unequal or discriminatory treatment (Wirth, 1945, cited by Wagley & Harris, 1958). A self-aware in-group feeling is an additional subjective criterion (Tajfel, 1978; Wagley & Harris, 1958), therefore, belonging to the group is to be freely determined by the person (de Varennes, 2020). Although not clearly included in a definition, minority group is also used to refer to marginalised, oppressed or vulnerable social groups with focus on gender, sexual orientation, disabilities or other characteristics, that fulfil some of these criteria (Malloy, 2013; Nibert, 1996; Tajfel, 1978).

Misinformation refers to incorrect or misleading information which is unintentionally disseminated and with no harmful intention (Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019). It can be made public by individuals or members of organised groups and can be of many types: rumours (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017); admittedly humorous presentations, such as satire or parody; honest mistakes by journalists, due to inadequate verification; among others (Jack, 2017). Media consumers are drawn in by the information’s appealing features: repetition, visual components, strong narrative and emotionality, making these messages more likely to be shared (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017). Inattention, along with a lack of analytical thinking, seems to play a role in truth discernment when it comes to the decision of sharing (Pennycook & Rand, 2021), as does the power of belonging to a social group (Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018) and motivated reasoning (Strömbäck et al., 2024).

In the era of globalisation, the concept of citizenship is undergoing profound transformations, redefining identities and affiliations. Yuval-Davis (1999) introduces multi-layered citizenship to disentangle citizenship from a static state-membership concept and to open it to a dynamic conception. This approach focuses on the relevance that individuals belong to multiple groups, from local to global, influencing identities and rights. Glocalisation, the blend of globalisation and localisation, shows that citizenship is not static nor confined to nation-state boundaries (Yuval-Davis, 1999). As a dynamic and negotiated process, citizenship is also shaped by gender, ethnicity, class, and international hierarchies (Stasiulis & Bakan, 1997). The politics of belonging highlight the tension between formal and informal membership, reinforcing the notion that identities and group affiliations are continuously negotiated in daily life (Brubaker, 2010). International migration challenges traditional notions of national identity and state sovereignty, requiring a dynamic understanding of modern citizenship underlining it as a complex, stratified, and continuously evolving phenomenon (Bloemraad et al., 2008).

The multiple streams framework (MSF) is a theoretical model of public policy analysis developed by John W. Kingdon in 1984, designed to explain how certain issues reach the political agenda and become formal policies. The MSF identifies three streams that flow independently but occasionally converge: (1) the problem stream, where conditions are recognised and defined as public problems through indicators, focusing events, or feedback from previous policies; (2) the policy stream, where competing policy proposals are evaluated for technical feasibility, value acceptability, and resource availability; and (3) the politics stream, which involves the political climate, party struggles, public opinion, institutional bargaining, and the influence of political actors. The model argues that major policy changes occur when these three streams are coupled during a policy window, a brief opportunity when policy entrepreneurs successfully link the streams to introduce new policies. (Kingdon, 2014)

Non-citizenship is a legally, politically, and socially constructed condition in which individuals lack formal citizenship within a particular state. Beyond merely signifying the absence of citizenship, it is a separate and active category of membership, shaped by state border policies, administrative rules, and societal perceptions (Bloom, 2018; Bosniak, 2014; Tonkiss & Bloom, 2015). This often means these people are seen as outsiders, even if they live within the state’s borders (Bosniak, 2014). It is marked by territorial insecurity, as non-citizens remain at risk of exclusion and deportation and thus lack a guaranteed right to be present (Bosniak, 2014; Weissbrodt, 2009). Non-citizenship also addresses an emotional perspective. Those who live within these conditions may feel rejected, insecure or with the feeling of non-belonging (Villazor, 2017). This is especially important when talking about migration because many people who move to another country experience these forms of exclusion and uncertainty (Bosniak, 214). The category is heterogeneous, encompassing refugees, asylum seekers, temporary workers, tourists, students and/or irregular migrants (Tonkiss & Bloom, 2015; Weissbrodt, 2009). These variations are shaped by state and non-state actors as well as by non-citizens themselves (Tonkiss & Bloom, 2015). Across these contexts, non-citizenship demands structural vulnerability, including the overriding of personhood rights through immigration control or illegalisation processes (Bosniak, 2014; Dutt Tiwari et al., 2024). It typically involves a limited political voice and restricted access to full membership, with little naturalisation opportunities (Bosniak, 2014), and historically it has been tied to racialised exclusions (Villazor, 2017). Non-citizenism emphasises the ways non-citizenship shapes forms of belonging while still leaving room for non-citizen agency (Bloom, 2018).

Othering is the process by which individuals or groups are defined in opposition to what society considers standard or belonging to their own group. This involves different categories, stereotypes, and processes that demarcate boundaries between groups, power hierarchies, and social distances (Fiske, 2018; Jensen, 2011). The human brain uses cultural and cognitive mechanisms of social perception to create otherness when people perceive differences that turn into moral judgments or dehumanising beliefs that produce emotional and behavioural effects (Harris & Fiske, 2006). Culturally based social perception mechanisms create otherness when people judge others through moralising or dehumanising practices that produce emotional and behavioural effects (Harris & Fiske, 2006). The social psychological process of othering helps people develop their identities through social comparisons that create opposition between groups, which affects how people view themselves and their group affiliations (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006; Wohl & Branscombe, 2005). Othering functions as an active social construction that allows researchers to study how people relate to each other and how they form moral judgments and develop their social identities.

Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions is a psychoevolutionary model proposed by Robert Plutchik to explain the structure, function, and adaptive purpose of human emotions (Plutchik, 1980; 2001). This model identifies eight primary emotions, including joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation. These emotions are arranged in a wheel that displays how emotions relate to one another through their intensities, similarities, and oppositions. The illustration shows opposite emotions that correspond with each other on opposite sides (e.g., anticipation-surprise) as well as a strength gradient, from mild to intense (annoyance-anger-rage) (Plutchik, 1980). The wheel shows that closely located primary emotions, when combined, form complex emotions (e.g., joy and trust form love) (Plutchik, 2001). Plutchik argued that evolutionary survival mechanisms, associated with specific adaptive needs, were the key factors for the formation of these emotions (Plutchik, 1980). Recent studies validate its practical utility in applied psychology and in emotional literacy tools for clinical and educational intervention (Semenaro et al., 2021), as well as in natural language processing to demonstrate the model´s application in the automatic coding of emotions using algorithms based on Plutchik´s wheel (Lim & Cheong, 2024). The model’s usefulness lies not only in its evolutionary structure, but also in how it facilitates emotional identification, interpretation, and regulation in personal, clinical, or design contexts.

The term policy entrepreneurs refers to individuals or groups who, without necessarily holding a formal position of authority, advocate for policy change and, through their resources, mobilise political capital, networks, technical and political knowledge, and persistence to promote and implement innovations that influence public policy. According to John W. Kingdon (1984), whose conceptualisation as part of the multiple stream framework has been widely developed in subsequent literature, they are advocates who are willing to invest their resources, such as time, energy, reputation, and money, to promote a position in exchange for future benefits. These agents identify problems and windows of opportunity, formulate policy alternatives, frame the problem and the solution, build alliances, and negotiate with public or private decision-makers to get their ideas adopted (Mintrom, 2019; Roberts & King, 1991). Their ability, willingness, and effectiveness depend not only on their individual characteristics, such as leadership, initiative, and social networks, but also on the institutional and contextual conditions that enable them to act (Bakir & Jarvis, 2017; Faling et al., 2018).

Policy making is a process of prioritising, planning, implementing and evaluating policy initiatives (Loncarevic et al., 2021). According to Howlett (2005), policy making is about creating and implementing different types of policy instruments that can achieve policy goals, regardless of how those goals will benefit the public or how broadly they are. Despite these meanings, policy making is usually seen as the activities adopted by a government to achieve results by means of public policies, often through legislation (Hallsworth, 2011). It involves both a technical and political process, so actors’ goals and means can be articulated together. These goals and the means to achieve them are what are considered policy (Howlett & Cashore, 2014). Policy making often occurs as a cycle, moving through the different stages of problem definition, agenda setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation. However, this cycle shows a vision of policy making that highlights the importance of rationality, linearity and government work (Delahais & Devaux-Spatakaris, 2022), which is often not found in empirical studies of the policy process (Jann & Wegrich 2007).

Policy responsiveness refers to the extent to which government actions and policies reflect the preferences, needs and expectations of citizens. It represents how successfully institutions translate the public opinions into decision-making (Manin et al., 1999; Soroka & Wlezien, 2010), while balancing bureaucratic motivations, accountability mechanisms and political limitations (Liu et al., 2025; Lupu & Tirado Castro, 2022). Responsiveness is not linear. Social inequalities, organisational capacity and policy salience have a direct impact on whose voices are heard, and interests prioritised (Busemeyer, 2022; Xiao et al., 2025). Policy responsiveness refers to a dynamic interaction between citizens, political institutions and bureaucracies that ultimately determines the legitimacy and effectiveness of governance (Manza & Cook, 2002).

The concept of a stakeholder applies across various disciplines (e.g., economics, public planning) to describe a wide range of actors, referring to those who have an interest in the issue at hand, are affected by its outcomes, or possess the capacity to influence decision-making and implementation processes (Balane et al., 2020; Bryson, 2004). Policy stakeholders are particularly significant, playing a central role as active or passive players in the policy landscape by shaping and influencing not only local, but also national and global policies. Indeed, they can reshape adopted measures by contesting and negotiating their implementation (Balane et al., 2020; Brugha & Varvasovszky, 2000). Policy stakeholders may serve as initiators, formulators, implementers, supporters, or opposers of a policy, while bringing the complex interaction between interests (stakes), position, and power to policy implementation (Agblevor et al., 2025). They are prominent in this field, largely because their role is deeply recognised among managers, researchers, and policy makers (Brugha & Varvasovszky, 2000). Regarding policy networks, it is also fundamental to highlight that collaboration between stakeholders from multiple organisational affiliations is what determines policy processes and outcomes within a policy subsystem (Weible, 2005).

According to Wolfsfeld (2015), political and, as a result, policy actors are people who wield political power and authority and who make significant efforts towards shaping decisions, public policy, and outcomes associated with a particular cause. Political actors include individual, collective and institutional actors and can be public (or political-administrative) and private actors (van der Eijk, 2018). While the former have public authority, the latter come from socio-economic or social-cultural spheres (Knoepfel et al., 2007). As they engage with political processes and use authority in policies’ decision-making, they impact collective outcomes, thus, having a critical role to play as they help determine societal futures. According to van der Eijk (2018), political actors engage with these processes within complex structures that depend on power, goals, and group relationships.

A political community is a collective entity constituted by a wide diversity of individuals united by shared beliefs, values, identities, feelings, and perspectives, from which its sense of nationhood emerges, expanding beyond natural communities (Chin, 2021; Drummond, 2023; Espinosa & Ronan, 2023). It is defined as the focus of decision-making, with the government accountable to the citizens beneath it (Lange et al., 2022; Putri et al., 2024). A political community establishes the social, cultural and formal terms of membership, shaping the various ways to belong to it. Its identity is unique, its major feature being the imaginative dimension, in which people imagine their interactions with others, their place in society, and what they expect from it (Chin, 2021; Drummond, 2023). Its members are seen as partners and, therefore, the result of one member's behaviour significantly influences others (Drummond, 2023; Wang et al., 2023). Many aspects contribute to the formation and strengthening of this community, such as education, empathy, and also experiences with punitive and violent authorities (Bakhit & Kindersley, 2022; Drummond, 2023; Espinosa & Ronan, 2023). Not only this community enables the creation of policies but also provides a background for communal life (Drummond, 2023; Putri et al., 2024). As a result, a political community is capable of making binding decisions that have the power to change and shape the world, through the sense of identity that its members share as a collective, alongside their ethical-political values, which increases solidarity among them (Chin, 2021; Dorfman, 2024; Espinosa & Ronan, 2023).

Political ideology is a concept that can be characterised by a set of beliefs, values, opinions and attitudes of an individual, group or society (Claessens et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2025) that provides the basis for organised political action. It provides a framework for individuals and groups to define their social environment and roles (Chen & Lu, 2024) allowing to interpret how people view the concept of society and how it affects political decisions (Aslaksen, 2025). It is an action-oriented concept that can steer political action, in an organised manner, intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power (Heywood, 2003). The concept also has a strong emotional character, since it allows people to express their feelings and interact with one another to do so, leading to bonding through the share of beliefs. In terms of measurement, Ulrich’s scale measures political ideology based on four subdimensions of economic libertarianism, conservatism, socialism and liberalism, which are said to represent the four central ideologies in the western world (Ulrich 2021).

The political centre is a concept that is usually described as the middle ground between the left and right ideology of politics and typically includes individuals who tend to place themselves in the middle on most issues or who hold an idiosyncratic mix of liberal and conservative positions (Fowler, 2023). This ideology usually focuses on messages of moderation, pragmatism and compromise, eschew radical positions and search for the golden mean between extremes (Craiutu, 2023), and can be marked as a balanced search for a higher social justice while also being compatible with maximum economic freedom (Santos, 2020). According to Ostrowski (2023), the political centre looks for reforms that redesign the social fabric without tearing it apart, expanding empowerment while respecting virtuous socialites and carefully filter through both new and current understandings and opportunities to craft a social reality that everyone can reasonably recognise, at least in part. The political views of the centre believe that it is possible and necessary to celebrate differences and individuality and reject any form of discrimination and censorship at the same time.

The radical left draws on traditional leftist ideologies such as communism and socialism (Amini, 2015), with equality as its core and distinguishing value (Bobbio, 1996). Around the 1960s, a new left emerged from issue-oriented social movements, inspired by the old left, which was more focused on class cleavage, as well as by the labour movement and, to some extent, anarchism (Wennerhag, 2018). Identity politics, which posits that individual identities are to be recognised and accommodated (Tully, 2008), gained momentum, along with issues such as ecology and feminism (Wennerhag, 2018). Increasing economic equality and relying more on state intervention than on liberalised markets to achieve it, are central goals of radical left parties (RLPs). Therefore, they take a firm stance against the neoliberal capitalist system (March, 2011), aiming at systemic transformation, while still accepting democracy and a mixed market economy, unlike the extreme left, which takes a more anti-system, hostile position towards liberal democracy (March, 2008). RLPs uphold humanistic, universalistic and cosmopolitan political views, stand for civil (Lukes, 2005) and labour rights, redistribution and social welfare, while opposing economic globalisation (Wennerhag, 2018).

Political ideology linked to the radical right brings together a set of beliefs and values centred on defending national identity and supporting strong, centralised authority. Generally, this ideological stance favours order, social cohesion, and stability, often combined with scepticism toward cultural diversity and democratic institutions (Mudde, 2019; Rydgren, 2007). Radical right narratives tend to draw on shared emotions - fear, resentment, or national pride - to construct perceptions of threat and to legitimise exclusionary rhetoric (Ahmed, 2023; Gianolla et al., 2024). In today’s democracies, these movements appear through a mixture of populism, authoritarianism, and nativism, gradually pushing illiberal ideas into the mainstream (Bruno et al., 2025; Alvarez-Benjumea & Valentim, 2024). Their growing acceptance reflects a broader decline in trust toward political institutions and a willingness to endorse leadership models that favour control and uniformity over diversity and equality (Magnus et al., 2025; Wahl, 2020).

Political narratives refer to stories or speeches that politicians use to persuade and mobilise their audience. They use stories that emotionally influence the public attempting to alter their perceptions. Empirical research shows that political narratives serve as tools to frame issues (Ahn et al., 2021), shape emotional engagement and group belonging and legitimise leadership and decision-making (Capano et al., 2023). They can also motivate civic behaviour by linking national identity with political participation (Shenhav at al., 2021). Political narratives are frequently communicated through speeches, media discourse, and social platforms, where competing party structures attempt to control meaning and influence behaviour (Ahn et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2022). Consequently, political narratives are not neutral representations of reality, but selective reconstructions that align facts and emotions to promote political power and mobilisation (King & Langston, 2008).

Politics of belonging demand looking at belonging through a collective and political lens, as it is not only an individual feeling but also a political and relational issue (Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2011). Adrian Favell defined the politics of belonging as “the dirty work of boundary maintenance” (Favell, 1999, p. 30) referring to the frontiers that divide populations into us and them and serve as catalysts in defining and negotiating different levels of belonging, such as social locations, identities, and ethical and political values (Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2011). These requisites of belonging shape the focus of political discussions: the right to migrate, the right of abode, the right to work, and, increasingly, the right to plan a future where one lives (Yuval-Davis, 2006).

Politics of exclusion refers to the processes, practices, and power structures through which specific social groups are systematically marginalised, silenced, or prevented from fully participating in political, economic, and cultural life (Young, 2000). It can be understood as a set of state, legal, discursive, and spatial practices that restrict certain groups' access to rights, social recognition, and political belonging (Bohman, 2007). These dynamics may manifest through discriminatory legislation, restrictive citizenship policies, nationalist discourses, institutional mechanisms that create unequal access to resources, or the symbolic construction of certain groups as outsiders (Bayar, 2021; Wimmer, 2002). Political exclusion is not limited to formal decisions; it also arises from informal practices that normalise social hierarchies and reinforce relations of domination (Bohman, 2007), affecting ethnic and religious minorities, migrants, racialised populations, women, and other historically marginalised groups (Tsakiropoulou-Summers & Kitsi-Mitakou, 2018). Exclusion is not simply a lack of integration: it is actively produced by non-recognition, the delegitimisation of voice, and the impossibility of fully occupying public space. Politics of exclusion helps analyse how states and institutions draw boundaries of belonging, determining who is recognised as a legitimate member of the political community and who is denied participation and representation (Young, 2000).

Politics of inclusion refers to policies and power dynamics that determine who is represented and engaged across social, political and institutional spheres. It describes how individuals and groups become recognised, represented, and able to participate in social and political life. It is about institutions creating environments where everyone feels a sense of belonging and opportunity, which often reveals gaps between stated commitments and actual practices (Corley et al., 2025; Navin Kariyawasam et al., 2024). It highlights that inclusion is never neutral, it is shaped by power relations, institutional structures, and historical inequalities that determine who is allowed to belong and under what conditions (Murphy & Vieten, 2025). Rather than a simple expansion of access, inclusion often operates through boundaries that continue to privilege certain groups while marginalising others. Initiatives designed to promote inclusion can unintentionally reinforce existing inequalities, particularly when they focus on superficial measures (Perng, 2025). Some studies have underscored that genuine inclusion implies a redistribution of power, rather than merely extending invitations for participation (Mendes, 2025; Nchofoung et al., 2023; Yanou et al., 2025). Inclusion should be understood as an ongoing negotiation, a process of balancing belonging and difference, equality and control (Iglesias Ortiz & Karimi, 2025). Politics of inclusion envisions enhancing equitable participation, ensuring real representation and transforming institutions to enable marginalised communities to impact decisions that affect their lives.

Early literature on prejudice defined it as “an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization,” or more simply as “thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant” (Allport, 1954, p. 6 and 9). Since then, the concept has evolved from early racial theories to social identity and cognitive explanations (Duckitt, 2010). Although Allport identified the antipathic nature of prejudice linked to exclusion and violence, he failed to direct attention to more subtle forms of control and exploitation (Dovidio et al., 2005). Devine (1989) argued that “as long as stereotypes exist, prejudice will follow” (p. 5), suggesting its automatic nature. However, contemporary perspectives urge a more nuanced understanding of intergroup beliefs and emotions and an effort to differentiate emotional subcategories of prejudice (Dixon et al., 2012). Duckitt (2010) notes that post-2000s literature conceptualises prejudice as complex, affective, and motivationally driven and that it can only be understood through the integration of different approaches (Levy, 2019). This increasingly multidimensional and context-dependent view illustrates the expansion of the scientific literature and underscores the challenge of formulating a single, universal definition.

Protection is the provision of security from perceived or real individual or social threads. Protection is related to individual intersectional positioning in society and may generate from political, cultural, religious institutions as well as family and social groups. Socio-political protection goes beyond addressing material needs, serving as a defence against social exclusion and therefore targeting the structural conditions that generate inequality, disadvantage and oppression. This perspective is crucial for analysing deprivations and political-social processes, where group membership and citizenship determine access to social protection (Norton et al., 2002; Shearer, 2002). Security is the outcome of public policy processes aimed at socio-political protection, i.e. protection of (multi-layered) citizens against exclusion and deprivation. Criticism of classical securitisation theory, due to its Eurocentrism and methodological racism, encourages inclusive policies that adopt an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach, avoiding a universal simplification of protection (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Amin-Khan, 2012; Bilgin, 2010; Howell & Richter-Montpetit, 2020). Migration research highlights the importance of political protection in ensuring that migrants have access to social rights and political protection against exclusion and discrimination (Huysmans, 2006; Könönen, 2017).

There is no clear-cut, agreed-upon definition for protective policies. However, “policies can be considered protective based on the quality of the policy, because political leaders frame them as such, or because few opposing policies effectively challenge them” (Albertson & Gadarian, 2015, p. 100). Despite this conceptual unclarity, much has been written on protection in a variety of individual policy areas, such as social protection (Jensen & Wenzelburger, 2020), environmental protection (Panwar et al., 2011) or protection from crime (Zahnow et al., 2021). With regards to the study of emotions, it is especially the aspect of framing a policy as protective from specific threats that is of academic interest. A wide array of different types of problems can be framed as threatening (Bonansinga, 2022), hence, in need of an appropriate policy response. In security studies, this understanding has given rise to an extensive strand of literature on securitisation, i.e., the idea that security is first and foremost a speech act in which a powerful, often institutional actor presents a specific problem as a security issue for a certain group, e.g., the public (Waever, 1993).

Public mood refers to a diffuse positive-negative affective state that individuals experience through their membership in a political community, distinct from but related to private mood and not reducible to a simple aggregation of personal feelings (Rahn et al., 1996). It represents a shared attunement to situations, shaped by short term factors like private mood and immediate events, and long-term factors including demographics, national identity, and chronic predispositions (Rahn et al., 1996; Zhou et al., 2021). This collective attunement appears across historical eras, audiences and crowds, where people emotionally coordinate themselves together (Ringmar, 2018). In political behaviour research, public mood functions as a time-varying latent dimension of public opinion, shifting between restrictive or permissive positions, prompting parties to adjust their policy stances accordingly (Van de Wardt et al., 2024). It also shapes political judgement, guiding how people process information even when other factors are controlled (Rahn et al., 1996). Policymakers monitor public mood through polls and surveys, given its importance for democratic decision-making (Semerci, 2024). In multiple streams framework (Kingdon 1984), changes in public mood are seen as conducive to agenda and policy change. Nowadays, social media generates and demonstrates public mood, producing rapid flows of emotional reactions that can both reflect and/or manipulate collective sentiment, with negative information and justice sensitivity amplifying its dynamics (Dean, 2017; Zhou et al., 2021).

Defining public policy in a single unambiguous description is not easy (for an overview, see e.g. Knill & Tosun 2012). Dye (2013) viewed it broadly as whatever governments choose to do or not to do. Public policy is made in the public interest and in response to societal problems by governments with the ultimate goal of mitigating them (Birkland, 2019). Cochran et al. (2012) suggest that the purpose of government and public policy is to provide security, define membership, ensure prosperity and well-being, and to help people meet their needs. Certain qualifications are necessary to define public policy: it must be an intentional and law-sanctioned course of action, but it is argued that law-making is not enough to establish a policy (Cochran et al., 2012). Behavioural public policy highlights the very thought of the importance of public opinion towards a successful implementation of public policy (John et al., 2023). Nonetheless, public policy also has a coercive quality that is inherently linked to a legal and political response to the arising demands from society and public opinion, distinguishing them from policies from private organisations (Anderson, 2003). A standard classification of public policy is the NATO-scheme developed by Hood and Margetts (2007), which differentiates public policy according to four governance principles: nodality (e.g. information campaigns), authority (e.g. legal prohibitions, bans), treasure (e.g. taxes or social benefits) and organization (e.g. public companies).

Social identity (SI) is the aspect of an individual’s self-concept that arises from their group membership (Tajfel, 1981; Turner, 1982). According to social identity theory, each person defines her/himself somewhat in terms of salient group memberships (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), including the value and emotional significance attributed to group affiliation. SI involves self-concept in relation to group membership (Hogg, 1996) and is associated with group behaviours/features (e.g. ethnocentrism, ingroup attraction, conformity, and favouritism). The comparisons between groups are likely to be made between the ingroup and the outgroup as a whole, whereas comparisons within the ingroup are made among individuals, contributing to the perception of homogeneity of the outgroup (Judd & Park, 1988). Social identity is balanced with psychological needs when the need for inclusion within the ingroup and the need for distinctiveness through differentiation between the ingroup and the outgroup is achieved (Leonardelli et al.,2010). Drawing on the concept of social identity complexity, individuals can hold multiple social identities simultaneously, as they belong to different social groups whose memberships may be cognitively organised, integrated, or differentiated depending on social context and personal experience (Roccas & Brewer, 2002). SI varies in salience/importance within an individual's self-concept and becomes a relevant basis for self-perception and behaviour depending on contextual factors (Turner, 1982). For instance, feminist research demonstrates that women's experiences vary based on intersections with ethnicity, sexuality, and social class, indicating that gender and sexuality are class-based and racialised social relations (Lutz et al., 2011).

Social Representations (SR) are shared ideas about objects that emerge in the dynamic established between individuals' daily interactions with their knowledge objects, previous experiences, and contextual characteristics. Based on the set of propositions and explanations of daily life during interpersonal communications, SR are understood as social phenomena composed of the context of production, the symbolic and ideological function, and the forms of communication in which they circulate (Jodelet, 2003; Moscovici, 1988, 1998). SR are a structured system of information, beliefs, opinions, and attitudes that form a socio-cognitive system composed of two interacting subsystems: the central system and the peripheral system (Abric, 2001, 2003). They are formed during interactions and always anchored to specific groups and objects, through contexts and established communication, the understanding framework provided by cultural background, and the values, codes, and ideologies related to specific groups/identities (Doise & Palmonari, 1986; Farr & Moscovici, 1984; Jodelet, 1986; Rateau et al., 2012; Sammut et al., 2016). Since the 1980s, significant efforts have been made to connect this perspective with other important contemporary studies (e.g. migration studies, gender studies, and cultural studies) regarding how social subjects, groups, and society as a whole construct and transform meanings rooted in pre-existing knowledge and daily experience.

Stereotypes are widely shared societal beliefs about the traits perceived to be characteristic of social groups and their members as a basis of judgments. They may be conceived as simplifications that help people cope with their social world (Shih et al., 2012), including generalised beliefs about specific groups, overly generalised, inaccurate, and resistant to new information (Meyer, 2008). Stereotypes tend to emerge more strongly about outgroups and to be more negative and extreme than about ingroups (Stangor, 1996). Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are related yet distinct concepts. Stereotypes are primarily cognitive, often internalised and unconscious, judgments which translate into prejudice as an attitude that produces discriminatory behaviour (Fiske, 1998). They reproduce a differential discourse between social groups which relate the identity or characteristic of an individual with their predicted qualities, attitudes and beliefs. Condor (1988) critiqued the cognitive approach to stereotypes, proposing an alternative focused on racial stereotypes to reveal the shortcomings of the cognitive approach, which dismissed the content and expression of stereotypes as trivial. Stereotypes are reproduced within social, cultural and political discourses reiterating unsupported ideas and knowledge about different social groups, contributing to the perpetration of intergroup aversion.

The theory of human motivation, defined by Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954), posits that human behaviour follows a hierarchy of needs, from basic biological needs to psychological and self-fulfilment needs. Maslow originally proposed five layers: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation, respectively. The fifth and highest level represents a B-need (growth need), and the lower levels represent D-needs (deficiency needs). When the lower tier is satisfied, the other needs become motivating, sometimes overlapping and coexisting with each other, making it a dynamic system, even though usually the lower needs precede the higher needs (Tay & Diener, 2011; Wahba & Bridwell, 1976). This theory has shaped contemporary psychology and continues to be discussed, expanded, and critically evaluated in research (Koltko-Rivera, 2006; Neher, 1991).

From a political psychology perspective, threat refers to situations (whether real or perceived) that challenge existing political orders and require policy responses before, during, or after their occurrence in order to prevent, mitigate, or manage their consequences (Pescaroli et al., 2022). These threats can range from wars, pandemics, natural disasters, terrorism (Brandt et al., 2020). The strictness of the policy implemented will depend on the level of risk presented (Chmel et al., 2021). It is the capacity to respond with a proportionate defence policy to a threat that will dictate the future progression of the security system (Schlipphak, 2021). The way each situation is handled will affect the degree of policy implementation and effectiveness and the level of individual trust in (their) leaders, allowing the political system to remain stable.

According to Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, values can be defined as abstract, trans-situational beliefs that express desirable targets and function as guidelines in people’s lives (Russo et al., 2022; Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz et al., 2012; Silva & Duque, 2025). Schwartz (1992) proposed that values arise from three universal human needs: (1) biological survival, (2) coordination of social interactions, and (3) collective survival and well-being, therefore making them relevant across cultures. Although relatively stable over time, situations and contexts, values are not unchangeable and can be altered due to contextual influences (Russo et al., 2022). Schwartz’s theory originally identified ten basic values (self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, and universalism) and then later expanded to nineteen so that it was possible to capture finer motivational distinctions (Russo et al., 2022; Schwartz et al., 2012; Silva & Duque, 2025). These values are, according to the theory, organised in a circular structure that reflects their compatibilities and conflicts and organises them into four higher-order dimensions: Openness to Change, Conservation, Self-Enhancement, and Self-Transcendence (Lechner et al., 2024). Altogether, values represent enduring motivational goals that guide perception, thought, and behaviour in both every day and life-defining decisions (Ponizovskiy et al., 2019).

A vulnerable group faces higher risks of harm due to limited resources, lack of support, or restricted access to essential services. This vulnerability usually comes from structural barriers, including unstable housing, weak legal protections, and difficulties in accessing healthcare. These factors make it hard for the group to handle and recover from crises (Lammens & Robben, 2025), requiring focused and fair interventions to protect their dignity, rights, and well-being. Research in health shows that people in these groups may be more likely to suffer from psychological issues, such as depression, especially after serious medical events. This is particularly true when their social and economic conditions are unstable (Mond et al., 2026). Additionally, studies on the environment demonstrate how climate-related stressors worsen existing disadvantages and increase mental health problems for marginalised populations (Mahmood et al., 2025; White et al., 2023). It should be underlined that vulnerability is not permanent; it changes based on the support available and factors like health literacy, which affects people's ability to make informed choices and navigate systems effectively (Barailla et al., 2025).