Complying with soft law instruments: the case of the European Charter for Research and Code of Conduct for their Recruitment

The use of soft law instruments in the European Union (EU) regulatory policymaking has been one of the main topics of discussion in the literature on EU governance in the last decade. In this respect, many authors have stressed the advantages of soft, non-binding regulation instruments (OMC, self-regulation, recommendations) alternative to ‘classic’, binding ones (regulations, directives, decisions) to promote integration in those areas member states are still reluctant to entrust policymaking to supranational institutions – some authors have also contemplated them as a way supranational institutions, mostly the European Commission expand their competences ‘by stealth’ (Majone 2005). My aim in this paper is to analyze the factors that influence individual voluntary compliance with recommendations, focusing on the case of the European Commission’s Recommendation on the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for their recruitment, one of the key instruments within the human resource strategy to establish the European Research Area (ERA). In particular, I am interested in the way institutional context, organizational characteristics, network interactions, and agency (entrepreneurship) combine to influence different levels of compliance with the Charter and Code. This is done by analyzing the implementation of this instrument in Spain between 2005 and 2015.