The US President's Political Positioning in Global Political Process:

Modern Approaches to Understanding of Security against the

Background of Political and Legal Consequences of COVID-19 Spread

Ekaterina Shevchenko

, Mikhail Burda

and David Grigoryan

2,3 c

Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration,

Vernadsky Avenue, Moscow, Russian Federation

South-Russian Institute of Management of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration,

Pushkinskaya Street, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation

Rostov Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation,

Marshall Eremenko Street, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation

Keywords: The US President, Political and Legal Consequences, Political Positioning, Global Political Process, Security,

Covid-19.

Abstract: Modernity is marked by unfolding of a range of political trends that change drastically the understanding of

observed political and legal phenomena and processes and the utilization of approaches existing in modern

political and legal doctrines. Growing scope and multifaceted characteristics of subjective and objective

factors wielding impact on development of world political order and essential in the context of identifying

some implicit and causal nature of political aspects makes various issues of political and legal theory and

practice increasingly more complicated. Ceaseless updating of index of political images and meanings,

simultaneous existence of conflicting activity and communicational modes, intricacy and interdependence are

far from all the features that partially explain for the dynamics and the extrapolation of political and legal

changes we are observing in global sphere. The security concept embedded in the matrix of political and legal

paradigms of today's global political process against the background of COVID-19 spread takes on a radically

new meaning (actual research of the US President's political positioning in global political process as one of

the political actors with crucial influence has special importance in the framework of this issue).

1 INTRODUCTION

Modern events unfolding in global political and legal

space and having a definite impact in the framework

of inter-state decisions against the background of

COVID-19 spread require a serious adjustment and

clarification as regards their understanding and

explanation (given the hitherto unseen speed and

amplitude of dynamics both the semantic content of

political and legal changes and the tools for their

comprehension are changing). Global community

deals with difficult issues embracing virtually all the

phenomena and the processes of modern state's

political and legal life.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9877-3161

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1520-3882

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5592-3548

Today we are faced with an extremely

differentiated system of possibilities and mechanisms

of assimilating the modern global political and legal

discourse. They are often difficult to identify and

analyse (the principles of unpredictability and

uncertainty). What seems actual today may lose its

significance tomorrow. Specific aspects of political

and legal reality may have totally different categorical

and semantic dominants and variants.

The issues of related to determining of readiness

to perceive a new reality in principle and to identify

one's own status through the prism of existing notions

and subjects in global political and legal space are

acquiring new significance. Against the background

of immersion into an extremely fragile and

Shevchenko, E., Burda, M. and Grigoryan, D.

The US President’s Political Positioning in Global Political Process: Modern Approaches to Understanding of Security against the Background of Political and Legal Consequences of

COVID-19 Spread.

DOI: 10.5220/0011110100003439

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference "COVID-19: Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals" (RTCOV 2021), pages 29-35

ISBN: 978-989-758-617-0

simultaneously complex world of political and legal

meanings the ability to reflect on observed changes

and to formulate serviceable guidelines of actions

decreases – this is associated with some

polysubjectivity and syncretism of political and legal

environment (which also means the presence of

features as inversion and volatility in it).

General trends are observed today in most states

whose engagement in global political process has

some degree of inclusiveness and incorporation. This

problem is further complicated by the deflection of

certain styles and formats of political decision-

making, which are characteristic of particular

political leaders (Yeletsky, 2021). An equally

important aspect deserving attention deals with the

feature of modern conflicting reality that highlights

the degree of trust in political and legal decisions.

2 METHODOLOGY

There are some reasons for supposing that reference

to an interdisciplinary (multiparadigmatic) approach

that envisions, among other things, a definite

overcoming of limitations of theoretical and

methodological aspects is necessary. In the first place,

there is a question of leveling out the negative impact

produced by pathos of some classical theories and

choosing the positive grounds that imply a critical

approach.

It is about using the following group of methods:

the system method, the structural and functional

method, the descriptive method, the discourse

method.

3 RESULTS

Today we are witnessing the aftermaths of what the

experts in postbichevioralism and poststructuralism

said at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries –

activity of political subjects is turning immediately

dependent on the impact of latently forming causal

relationships, which have the potential of entropy and

irreversibility. Their superimposition on each other

produces a certain effect of summation and

cumulativeness making it necessary to design a

different trajectory of political activity. First, there is

a need to reevaluate the problem of enforceability and

controllability. Second, some issues of independence

and openness (publicity) are getting a different

interpretation.

The bulk of political and legal phenomena and

processes should be reviewed, the direct dependence

on specific circumstances should be less noticeable in

the current context. In most cases ideologizing and

value-related conditioning are perceived as factors of

constraint making a fruitful and mutually beneficial

organization of political and legal communication

impossible.

Applicability of existing theories and concepts in

the framework of world political problems should

also be revised and (if possible) reformulated (at the

same time global political elite is not ready for it

(Kuvaldin, 2021). It would make sense to discard the

trite cliché and the standardized procedure that are

dysfunctional in today's conditions and do not have

the right to exist.

The security problem has acquired a new

significance in light of recent global political and

legal development, the range of which has expanded

over the past few years, – from the transformation of

geopolitical status of the Middle East to the search for

mutually acceptable ways of constructing inter-state

cooperation against the background of COVID-19

spread. While limelight is given to the demands for

an overhauled definition of security there is no

ignoring the risks and the threats that encountered

everywhere nowadays.

The issues related to coordination of modern

states' positions in global political arena and

commitment to approved guidelines of inter-state

interaction in classical sense prompt us to turn to the

consideration of theoretic grounds of comprehending

the security concept, albeit in a different context.

Some approaches do not find confirmations in

everyday political and legal practive. Validity of

other approaches has been proved, but in slightly

modified versions. At the same time categorization of

certain aspects of today's political and legal reality

calls for an emphasis on completely new positions.

In fact, we should discuss the presentation of the

best approaches for a particular stage:

1. Standard (legal) approach. Security is an

institutionalized construct in the framework of norms

and principles of international law. The security

concept is thought of in terms of legality and

illegality. State activity in foreign policy is based on

legal and regulatory parameters approved and

endorsed by majority of representatives of global

community. Extensive attention is paid to

transparency and declarativeness.

2. Institutional approach. Security is formulated

and guaranteed primarily by international

organizations and institutions as well as political

associations and alliances of states. This means that

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features like referentiality and collectivity are

encouraged.

3. Factor-related approach. The security concept is

subject to understanding proceeding from

consideration of a set of mostly objectively

conditioned factors: scale of crisis manifestations,

efficaciousness of adaptation and neutralization

practices, specifics of technological development and

advance of information technologies in modern

states, general level of world social development,

nature of distribution of political roles and functions

(even or uneven) among representatives of global

political elite and influence of political leaders on

global political arena. Because of this determining in

terms and possibilities of ensuring security is highly

dependent to situation and alterable.

4. Structural approach. Globally security

represents the full set of the following elements:

social, political and legal, economic, military,

environmental and anthropological. Essential task in

this context is to identify and characterize such

characteristics as syncretism and complementarity

between these components.

5. Constructivist (purpose-oriented) approach.

Comprehending security means to extrapolate the

purely individual political and legal targets and

objectives at the global level, this presupposes taking

account of political experience and chronological

specifics of political events (subjectivity and inter-

subjectivity in separate cases). Semantic context of

consideration of the security problem is justified by

the resource and the strategic potential of a particular

personality.

6. Conflict-generating approach. Criteria and

requirements of security with regard to development

in global political and legal space are formulated on

basis of understanding of need to resolve real

conflicts between states. Security is proclaimed to be

a set of possibilities generated by the way of

overcoming existing risks and threats. In other words,

security is viewed as a kind of guarantee of defusing

the tension. Ensuring security is the paramount

objective of overcoming the differences that arise.

These approaches can be viewed as classical ones

and standing in line with logic of development of

inter-state relations nowadays. Simultaneously,

however, some relatively recent approaches, which

are now receiving greater attention, are also

important: the hermeneutic approach (a series of

comprehension methods and techniques that enable

us to draw attention to some covert aspects and mean

some practical value) and the synthetic approach (a

set of several theoretical and methodological

principles and explanatory models, which are not

mutually exclusive or limiting each other).

The US political and legal problems are

characterized by «emphasizing» some negative

aspects of uneven and (in some way) fatal

multipolarity of modern world. Particularly, it is

about Washington's official pivot to «great power

competition» as the conceptual framework of the US

foreign policy orientation (Mankoff, 2020). In this

context, the United States can be viewed as a catalyst

not only aggravating the existing contradictions

within political blocs of states, but also projecting the

failure of some international institutions. Infusion of

the system of international relations (to be more

exact, the system of business contacts and the practice

of signing top-level deals) with destructive and

unbalancing elements correlates with the name of D.

Trump that brought up a wave of misunderstanding

and criticism on the part of members of global

сommunity. A change of political course by J. Biden

towards revenge-seeking and revision of some

initiatives undertaken by the 45th US President does

not mean that global skeptical community abandoned

its earlier priorities.

Most academic and publicistic (media) sources

offer a critical view of some specific lessons of D.

Trump's presidency: they mostly accuse him of taking

political and legal steps that deepened the systemic

split between political camps of Democrats and

Republicans inside the country and made the USA

one of the main political outsiders at the level of

international relations. In practical terms this takes

the form of pegging labels such as «political pariah»,

«populist», «instigator», «troublemaker» that abound

in the American media products – isolationist label

was also actively used by members of the American

political establishment (Kupchan, 2021). For his part,

D. Trump has also repeatedly criticized, among

others, both the US Congress and the international

organizations such as NATO and WTO.

One can agree or disagree with comments on and

assessments of D. Trump's activity – it depends on the

system of scientific research and expert reference

points. One cannot ignore the very important fact that

D. Trump has, in fact, brought cybersecurity to

limelight as one of the most important topics and

called attention to a number of issues regarding the

design of more modern forms and ways of protecting

data storage systems and spaces. Before him this topic

had not been explored strategically or substantively.

D. Trump outlined a more or less evidence-based

format of actions towards of intellectual property

protection, strengthening the technological

sophistication of existing infrastructure, maintenance

The US President’s Political Positioning in Global Political Process: Modern Approaches to Understanding of Security against the

Background of Political and Legal Consequences of COVID-19 Spread

of a competitive advantage in regulation of digital

space, monitoring of possible attempts to gain

unauthorized access, etc.

It is noteworthy that in early 2021 the UN reached

consensus on endorsing a report by the UN Open-

Ended Working Group on Achievements in the Field

of Informatization and Telecommunications that

takes account of the key provisions of previous

discussions and, on top of that, acknowledges some

issues raised by the UN General Assembly First

Committee (Disarmament and International

Security). This proves the importance of inclusion of

the cybersecurity concept in global political and legal

agenda and the high potential of its discussions in the

framework of global community.

As for changes in the US internal policy course

and the US foreign policy course after J. Biden's

arrival, the main immediate prospects of his

presidency remain very vague for the time being and

it is still too early to consider them seriously in a

comprehensive way. In fact, J. Biden has found

himself in a rather precarious situation. On the one

hand, representatives of the Democratic Party wing

insistently demand to rethink the key political and

legal decisions made by former White House master.

On the other hand, some image-makers of the 46th

US President stress the importance of keeping up

independence and unbiased character (although the

initial political and legal background was generally

positive, because 58% of Americans in early 2021

expressed their approval of work done by J. Biden to

explain his political steps, as evidenced by public

opinion monitoring ted by Pew Research Center (Pew

Research Center, 2021).

What is the way to build political and legal

cooperation with the United States given the situation

as it is? What arguments should be invoked in process

of political and legal decision-making with account of

the US interests? To which degree is it necessary to

exercise caution in process of discussions the

outstanding problems? Which forms would suit the

delimitation of different areas of responsibility? Most

questions of this kind are directly related to improved

understanding of security in the context of the US

President's political and legal actions. More

problematic is reflection on the US President's

political positioning in modern global political

process in the framework of the security concept (in

this case political positioning is seen, first and

foremost, through the prism of image and stylistic

features of political and legal activity).

Criteria and requirements of security are

extremely tangible when it comes to immediately

influencing a political figure. As a public political

personality the US President has a definite set of

rhetorical tools and skills that have to be resorted to

(and that are profitable to resort to). An important

factor here is selection of concepts and formulas that

are most understandable to other parties in terms of

political and legal features as well as the diligent

treatment of these concepts and formulas.

Manipulations with incorrectly chosen political and

legal guidelines can trigger the severing of

agreements that have been reached and, in addition to

it, the freezing of any serious interestedness at the

supranational level in principle.

The US President's media activity in process of

global building communication forms is a highly

controversial issue in the context of some questions

looks as follows: what forms of participation should

be espoused? What political and legal tools should be

used to steer the event? Which political and legal

ways would use the produced information and

communication background in its advantage? What

format should use to answer the questions from

journalists and moderators?

The US President has serious official and political

and legal resources in the context of foreign policy.

What is the basis of using them? What are the limits

of their utilization? What are the fundamental features

of political and legal tools activating in the context of

participation in global political handling? What is the

validity of their activation? What are the key aspects

of global political situation that directly adjust the

choice of political and technological elements of

working together?

Formulation and replication of characteristics of

the American President's political image accepted as

appropriate and tolerable is also an acute theme. The

key reference point here is the positivization of a

peculiar phenomenology in the global context:

connection with certain political and legal events,

certain political and legal agenda (this issue, however,

does not confine to rhetorical, communicational,

resource or image aspects).

A definite pool of central issues fitting into the

problems of the US President's political positioning

in the context of the security concept looks as follows:

 compliance with norms and principles of

international law, implementation of basic

provisions of international law in national

legislation of the United States;

 establishing the contours and the guidelines of

national security of the United States,

coordinating the configuration of foreign

policy activities with other parties.

There is no need to dwell in detail on the key

strategic documents and the genesis of

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implementation of the US national security strategy

(structure of activity of workgroups, assessment of

results of foresight research ordered by the

government structures, degree to which proposals

made in specific public reports are translated into real

practice, efficiency of organization of some seminars

where high-ranking experts are invited), some

scientific literature offers a sufficient number of

works in this respect. So the key to understanding the

security problem being actualized today is to prepare

a rational basis for reformatting the habitual way of

thinking of the American political establishment on

security-related issues (the American political

establishment sees the need to confront adversaries

and competitors by using any suitable resources for

this as a central reference point). Along with it,

concept of today's world as a world of strong

sovereign and independent states with their own

culture and national dream successfully develop side

by side in prosperity, freedom and peace is fixed as a

key guideline (Kramarenko, 2018). This highly

limited approach requires adjustments as a minimum

towards enhancing flexibility and consideration of

spatial and temporal factor.

It is unlikely that adjustments of world political

and legal order will be done in format of unipolarity

in the future (Diplomatic Academy Of The Ministry

Of Foreign Affairs Of The Russian Federation, 2020).

Globally the United States with D. Trump managed

to recognize this fact, although in a somewhat

peculiar manner. Despite a number of confrontational

actions by the 45th US President, which provoked

controversy and contradictory evaluation of political

leaders of most influential states, but were undertaken

with aim of rearranging of global political situation,

one can plainly see that it is impossible to achieve

success alone. Security is inconceivable as something

formulated by one side only. Each year

interdependence of the main political actors will be

getting stronger, thus ensuring the priority of

resolution of all emerging issues through

negotiations.

For the US President the security concept is seen

primarily as a problem of the ratio of expenditures

and results achieved. As a minimum, the following

options are possible: to abandon such an imperative

or to draw up an appropriate system of arguments

(counterarguments) and resources. To maintain a

leading influential position in modern world in line

with precepts of theory is a truly utopian task. The US

foreign policy activity is facing this key challenge

today.

In modern situation it is impossible to establish an

alternative picture of the world that rejects generally

accepted political and legal norms and principles. At

the same time the United States is still considering the

matters of security in the framework of outdated

system of coordinates. J. Biden will have to resolve a

number of problems that concern the formulation of

modern understanding of security. An acceptable

formula in this case can rely on the following steps:

renunciation of unilateral actions, adoption of a line

at coordinating positions with stakeholders,

manifestation of openness towards cooperation and

participation in an overhaul of jointly utilized tools

with regard to changing circumstances.

This issue acquires a personalized implementation

in the sense that the range of goals and objectives of

political and legal decision-makers have to grapple

with is enlarged, therefore the number of obligations

increases and the field of responsibility widens.

Ensuring security is a condition, the fulfillment of

which is more necessary than ever for purpose of

stabilizing social relations within state and

maintaining one's own encouraging political image

abroad.

4 DISCUSSION

Some experts indicate that in modern conditions it is

essential to identify the basis of modern

understanding of security. It is necessary to answer

the question, which option can be considered the most

«working» one in spectrum of numerous definitions

of the concept and approaches to the choice of

scientific research tools. Should security be

understood as a set of specific techniques and tools

for attaining a goal (the group of operational

definitions) or directly as a goal itself (the group of

purposive-rational definitions)? Does security reflect

a particular level of protection or mean a set of

guarantees of this protection? Is security conditioned

more by internal political (national security) or

external political (international security) factors? Is

security a concept underpinned by the interests of

state rather than by the interests of a group of states?

In this context we cannot talk about formulation of an

unambiguous definition, because in principle no

category of social and humanitarian sciences implies

its presence. It is rather a question of narrowing the

subject field, in the framework of which the security

concept should be placed.

The viewpoint of some classical realists who

believe that the security concept should not be

understood in the framework of clearly defined

dichotomy can be viewed as the one that holds water.

It is impossible to discuss the presence or the absence

The US President’s Political Positioning in Global Political Process: Modern Approaches to Understanding of Security against the

Background of Political and Legal Consequences of COVID-19 Spread

of security. The crux of this matter is security ensured

to a bigger or a smaller degree. Moreover, we cannot

but mention the viewpoint that the category of

«threat» should be used instead of the category of

«force» in the context of discussion of security. This

reinforces the reference point that today it does not

stand to reason to ignore some provisions of classical

approaches (despite a number of unprecedented

political and legal changes in modern world).

In addition, the question of thinking about security

in terms of need to ensure it – what actions political

leadership is ready to take in order to provide certain

guarantees and assurances and what basis it should

proceed from – is also debatable. Modern

understanding of principles, conditions, procedural

and activity-related peculiarities and concrete results

of ensuring security in the framework of modern

global political process rests of the following

provisions:

 the extent to which members of global political

establishment are prepared to sacrifice the

potential bonuses and benefits;

 how consistent and predictable political leaders

of modern states are in implementing collective

actions and activities;

 the degree to which political actors are

demonstrated the reliability with respect to

each other's political and legal steps and

decisions through the prism of ability to

regularly confirm the commitment to one's own

declared proposals and initiatives);

 the degree to which the key political players are

convinced about prospects for and limits to

implementing the joint political and legal

projects (what is the degree of sensitivity to

possible changes and willingness to conduct a

fruitful dialogue);

 how relevant the specifics of participation and

the concrete results achieved (evenness,

symmetry) are;

 how effective the joint work based on results of

discussions and meetings.

Beyond any doubt, the main but not the only task

in the course of discussing the security problem today

is to rebuff the pressure from influential political

actors (as well as representatives of global academic

community) who defend narrowly oriented and

biased positions impeding any solution to existing

problems in principle. This was the case with

scientific research of experience in the field of

security in Latin America and Central Asia, where

methodology of European political and legal science

was taken as a basis. This brought about erroneous

conclusions and made these scientific works devoid

of consistency in general (Khudaykulova, 2016).

5 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the aforesaid, the US President's political

positioning in global political process at this stage is

rather dubiously blended into the outline of this

problem – much is complicated by the aftermaths of

the COVID-19 pandemic (Burns, 2020). Choice of J.

Biden's team in respect to implementation of foreign

policy and geopolitical projects remains unclear, but

today it is necessary to focus, first of all, on some

extremely important aspects. First, it is

recommendable to avoid what would be wrong and

irresponsible from political and legal viewpoints.

Second, it is necessary to formalize the adoption of

refusing to preserve modern world that relies on use

of military and political force and full-scale

promotion of the American influence. In addition to

it, rejection of tainting labels and subjectivist

interpretations such as «political aggression» and

«economic coercion» is also fruitful. This does not

mean being vulnerable to weakness, but much rather

invokes a willingness to compromise in order to show

favor and thereby expand the boundaries for

achieving actual goals.

Political and legal paradigm of the US President's

political positioning in the framework of world

political problems should match the criteria of

engagement and activity and imply the acceptance of

a growing number of drivers that affect the

transformation of today's world political and legal

order. It is useful to be able to correctly combine the

guidelines of ensuring self-sufficiency (strengthening

one's own competitive advantages) and inclusion in

bulk of modern transactions. Stating the limits of

applicability of the well-known principle of restraint

in political and legal relations would have a positive

effect. Some scientific researches done by the

American authors – particularly, in the framework of

the Cambridge Studies in International Relations

(Steele, 2019) – confirm this.

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The US President’s Political Positioning in Global Political Process: Modern Approaches to Understanding of Security against the

Background of Political and Legal Consequences of COVID-19 Spread