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“Leadership bias”:
imbalances and contradictions of contemporary comparative concepts of development

Sergeev E.A.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, sergeev.e.a@my.mgimo.ru

elibrary_id: 914172 |

Article received: 2025.11.26 12:21. Accepted: 2026.01.24 12:21


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2026.02.12
EDN: GZICFN

Rubric: Theory and methodology of political studies

For citation:

Sergeev E.A. “Leadership bias”: imbalances and contradictions of contemporary comparative concepts of development. – Polis. Political Studies. 2026. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2026.02.12. EDN: GZICFN (In Russ.)

The article was prepared within the framework of a state assignment.

Abstract

The article is devoted to critically overviewing contemporary comparative concepts of socioeconomic development that have taken shape within the Western-centred academic and policyexpert discourse. At the core of the analysis is the notion of the “leadership bias”, which is used to describe a situation in which the criteria of “success” and the very idea of development in non-Western and developing societies are constructed from the standpoint of the historically dominant variant of capitalism, the architecture of international aid and the accompanying knowledge system. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach that combines new institutional and evolutionary economics, comparative politics and theories of globalization, the article shows that most existing models are reductionist: they concentrate on institutional quality and formal growth indicators, while underestimating the dualism of economic systems, the predominance of the survival motive in the traditional household sector, the influence of historical and cultural “institutional genes” and the asymmetry of power in the global economy. It is concluded that new versions of “new comparative economics” which do not overcome the limitations of the Western-centred approach reproduce structural imbalances, and the article argues for a rethinking of the category of development based on recognition of the diversity of institutional configurations and motivational structures in the countries of the global South.

Keywords

development, comparative economics, comparative analysis of economic systems, comparative politics, non-economic factors, globalization, non-Western systems.

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