The Soft Law of the Covenant: Making Governance Instrumental

Covenants are agreements between the government and social partners to implementpublic policy. They are a form of soft law, guiding the regulation ofself-regulation, and are specifically relevant in bridging the macro and mesolevels of society. Covenants prove effective where actors share goals, and learnto advance policy-making by monitoring efforts, effects and possible risks, andby subsequently fine-tuning follow-up actions. Positive-sum outcomes oftenresult. We describe successful examples of this method of cooperation in therealm of working conditions and employment, and claim that covenants can behelpful in facilitating collective-bargaining framework agreements. In terms ofEU policies, covenants are an instance of so-called European GovernanceArrangements, the political and institutional foundations of which are still tobe developed