In order to avoid the domination of one country over another through foreign policy, Barbara Buckinx, a researcher at Princeton University, offered three proposals at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra, including: "On the one hand, the design of global governance to prevent individual states from devising independent foreign policy programs; on the other hand, that foreign policies go through an international institution to measure their degree of dominance; lastly, the proposal of a comprehensive authorization system with which countries would ensure that carrying out their specific foreign policies does not involve any abuse of power."

Professor Buckinx is a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and spoke as part of a session organized by the ICS, the Humanities and Social Sciences research center at the University of Navarra.

According to Professor Buckinx, all foreign policy is potentially dominating: "Just by virtue of having independent policy, a state has a certain power over other countries that is beyond the control of the people who are affected by it." With regard to the latter point, she clarified that "domination occurs when someone is unprotected from another's ability to arbitrarily interfere in their decision making."

Protests against wars

The Princeton researcher noted that, while citizens of democratic states have some form of control over their governments, for example through the vote, "more and more people are concerned about the coherence between their countries' national and international policies. This concern explains the numerous protests against wars that have taken place in recent decades."

Professor Buckinx's seminar, entitled "The Foreign Policy of a Non-Dominating State," inaugurated the third edition of the ICS's Ethics and Society Forum, a series of seminars that addresses issues related to the improvement of community life and society from the perspective of ethics, legal theory, economics, social and political philosophy, and the social sciences in general.