Responsible leadership (RL) has become a buzz word in the current lexicon of business and politics, but there is still limited agreement on the components, scope, and characteristics. The confusion is rooted, in part, in the dominance of normative perspectives that take RL as a universal phenomenon. However, embedded in a specific culture, RL cannot be understood fully without understanding the moral traditions of that culture. In this article, we used a case study method to explore how RL is understood and practiced in China. Taking the role theory perspective, we conducted in-depth interviews with 9 highly regarded responsible executive leaders and 92 stakeholders in and outside of their companies who were well acquainted with the leaders. Our findings reveal that in China, the moral character of leaders guides them to define and take responsibility for themselves, their employees, companies, and external stakeholders. The five dimensions of RL we identified and the relationships among the dimensions include characteristics that reflect Chinese culture, such as strong sentiment for the nation, self-discipline, developing employees philosophically, and ‘jun zi wu ben’ (a gentleman should focus on fundamental matters). We conclude by discussing the implications of our study for RL research and practice.

When and how do party politics matter in junior allies’ decisions to engage in multinational military operations? Developing a new role theory model of party politics and multinational military operations, we put forward a two-level argument. First, we argue that the rationale for military action is defined in a contest between political parties with expectations of what constitutes the proper purpose (constitutive roles) and functions (functional roles) of the state. Second, we hold that material and ontological insecurities reduce political space for contestation and debate, but that junior allies tend to focus on role demands for ‘good states’ and ‘good allies’ rather than the nature and aim of the military operation. To unpack our argument, we analyse the debate among political parties in Romania and Denmark leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Concluding our analysis, we outline the implications for the changing security order and current debates in NATO member states on how to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In the last two decades, the European Union (EU) has forged an international role as a ‘force for good’ and a champion for democracy, human rights, multilateralism, free trade, climate change action, and sustainable development. However, as the international context has grown more competitive and turbulent, it has become more challenging for the EU to uphold this global role. Subsequently, the EU has pursued more proactive policies to confront urgent challenges to the rules-based international system and global governance norms. This paper explores what the EU’s evolving geopolitical foreign policy role actually entails and how it is compatible with the Union’s understanding of itself as a global leader as expressed as a Normative Power, Market Power, and Security Power. Utilising the Indo-Pacific Strategy of 2021 and subsequent communications as illustrative examples, it examines how the EU is upscaling its plans and partnerships into a broader, sustainable connectivity strategy that fits into the context of a reoriented EU foreign policy and its leadership goals. In conclusion, it finds that the credibility of the three powers that the EU proclaims to play will be dependent on the coherence of the role set and the extent to which the EU can achieve these roles.

Policy responses to population ageing have focused on lengthening working lives, overlooking inequalities in older adults’ participation in unpaid activities. This paper examines participation in paid and unpaid activities between the ages of 55 and 70 to answer two questions: how do people navigate pathways of paid work, informal care, volunteering, civic participation and housework in mid to later life?; and how do these pathways relate to gender, socio-economic and health inequalities? Two-staged latent class analysis was used to identify activity pathways using data from the British Household Panel Survey (1996–2008). Multinomial logistic models assessed associations between latent pathways and socio-demographic and health characteristics. Three pathways were observed: full-time work to low activity (49%), part-time and in-home work (34%) and multiple activities (16%). Aside from retirement from full-time work, the pathways of participation in paid and unpaid activities were characterised by continuity; substitution between different forms of paid and unpaid work was not observed. Participation in multiple paid and unpaid activities was more common for respondents in better health and of higher socio-economic status. Since the promotion of paid work and volunteering in later life may mainly benefit individuals in advantaged circumstances, policies should avoid taking a blanket approach to encouraging participation in multiple activities, a key component of active ageing.

The literature on International Relations theory has yet to align relational theory with role theory, despite the fact that these two theories share so much epistemological common ground. This article uses role theory to bridge the gap between the Confucian and Western conceptions of relationality, whose practitioners regard each other as strangers. With the support of role theory, the comparative analysis of relationality in this article has mainly focused on two different types of relations: prior rule-based relations and improvised relations. The differences in the cultural preparation for these two relations partially explain the plurality of the relational universe and the perception of stranger. Role theory is one way to reconnect the seemingly irreconcilable relational universes. To illustrate the value of a composite agenda of relational theory and role theory, the article will use Kim Jong-un of North Korea as its case. Confucian relations propose that, for all nations, the necessity of having a certain role relation is a more important agenda than insisting on exactly what role to take.

Twenty years after the NATO intervention in Kosovo, domestic Western societies seem to have become more distrustful of the possibility of invoking and implementing humanitarian intervention (HI). This paper focuses on the 2011–2015 British domestic debate on the possibility of using force against the Syrian Government of Bashar al-Assad and against the Islamic State in Syrian territory. The goal is to understand how relevant domestic actors, namely the Government and the political parties, debated the concept of HI and engaged in several discursive strategies with the goal of influencing the decision on whether or not to intervene. The perception of the Members of Parliament about the failure of previous British governments of different ideological affiliations to carry out successful and useful interventions, especially in Iraq and Libya, favoured the development of an ‘intersubjective understanding’ that reflects a more precarious consensus on HI. The paper explains how the historical analogies of operations Iraqi Freedom against Saddam Hussein and Unified Protector against Muammar Gaddafi shaped the perceptions of political parties by pushing them to claim a larger say in disputes related to the legitimacy and feasibility of these operations.

The phase of retirement has been steadily growing since the 1950s. Rules and regulations related to retirement have been changing. Recent cohorts have reached this phase in better health than previous ones. Until recently, retirement has been rather void of societal expectations, leaving room for individual decisions regarding amount and type of activity. Thus, investigating activity patterns displayed during this life phase, their predictors and outcomes seems overdue. The study addresses three questions: (a) Which distinct clusters of productive activities among retirees can be identified in Germany? (b) Do activity patterns of clusters follow complementary or substitutive composition rules? (c) Which are the most important predictors of cluster membership? Using probability-based sample data (N = 2,141) from the survey ‘Transitions and Old Age Potential’ (TOP), this study investigated clusters of productive activities among retirees aged 60–70 years in Germany. The activities examined included paid work after retirement, formal and informal volunteering, child care and care-giving. Results showed a four-cluster structure. The clusters (Multiple Engagers, Volunteers, Family Helpers and Family Disengagers) differed with regard to the composition and the intensity of productive activities. Both complementary and substitutive relations were identified within clusters. Individual, familial and economic resources were predictors of cluster membership. Results are discussed with regard to role theory, cumulative inequality theory and the ongoing debate about old-age potential.

With the resignation of President Soeharto in 1998 and subsequent democratization, Indonesia's foreign policy underwent major changes. More stakeholders than under Soeharto's New Order regime are now participating in foreign-policy making. The country seemed to make democracy promotion a hallmark of its foreign policy, especially under the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–2014). This raises the questions of whether and, if so, to what extent Indonesian democratization changed the country's established foreign-policy role conceptions and how much impact Indonesia's democratization had on the democratization of regional governance. The paper seeks to answer these questions by developing a theoretical framework based on a constructivist version of role theory. On the basis of speeches held by Indonesian political leaders in the United Nations General Assembly and major domestic foreign-policy pronouncements, it documents changes in Indonesia's foreign-policy role concepts. It shows that, indeed, in the Era Reformasi, democracy became a major component in the country's foreign-policy role concept, although many elements of the role concept such as development orientation, Third Worldism, peace orientation, and a mediator's role remained constant. However, the litmus test for a democracy-oriented foreign policy, that is, the democratization of regional governance in Southeast Asia, remains ambiguous, and concrete policy initiatives often declaratory.

Background: This study evaluates the predictive effects of different aspects of volunteering (e.g. volunteering status, number of hours, number of years, and type of volunteering activity) on all-cause mortality.

Methods: A seven-year follow-up dataset of a nationally representative sample of Israelis, 60 years and older was used.

Results: As expected, volunteering was associated with a reduced mortality risk even after adjusting for age, gender, education, baseline mental health and physical health, activity level, and social engagement. Those who volunteered for 10 to 14 years had a reduced mortality risk relative to non-volunteers. In addition, those who volunteered privately, not as part of an official organization, also had a reduced mortality risk compared to non-volunteers. The number of hours of volunteering was not a significant predictor of all-cause mortality in the fully adjusted model. In additional sensitivity analyses limited to those who volunteered, none of the various aspects of volunteering was associated with a reduced mortality risk.

Conclusions: Results suggest that not all aspects of volunteering have the same predictive value and that the protective effects of length of volunteering time and type of volunteering are particularly important. However, whether or not volunteering is the most consistent predictor of mortality and whether once a person volunteers the various aspects of volunteering are no longer associated with mortality risk.