Neither North nor South: How the Global East Remains Invisible in Development Studies Journals

In the study of how nations grow, struggle, and change, scholars have long relied on a simple map to organize their thinking. This map divides the world into two main camps: the Global North, representing wealthy, industrialized nations, and the Global South, representing developing nations. This division helps researchers understand who holds power, who receives aid, and whose voices are heard in academic debates. For decades, this two-part framework has been the standard lens for examining global inequality. However, this binary view leaves a significant gap. It struggles to account for a group of nations that do not fit neatly into either category: the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. These societies, often called the Global East, occupy a middle ground. They are not as wealthy or integrated as the core Western nations, yet they are often too developed to be grouped with the poorest developing countries. Because they fall between the cracks of the traditional North-South divide, their unique experiences with rapid economic transformation, political change, and social shifts have largely been overlooked in the global conversation about development.

A recent study by Zdeněk Opršal seeks to bring this invisible region into focus by examining who is actually writing and deciding what gets published in the world's leading academic journals on development. The researcher asked a straightforward question: if the Global East is a distinct and important part of the world, why is it so hard to find scholars from these countries in the pages of major development journals? To answer this, Opršal conducted a systematic count of the people behind the research. He looked at 19 prominent journals that specialize in development studies, covering articles published between 2022 and 2024. He also examined the lists of editors who run these journals, the people who decide which papers are accepted and which are rejected. The goal was to see where scholars from the Global East stood in relation to their counterparts from the North and the South.

The results reveal a striking absence. When the researcher looked at the editorial boards—the gatekeepers who shape the direction of the field—he found that out of nearly 700 positions across all 19 journals, only one was held by a scholar affiliated with an institution in the Global East. That single position represented just a tiny fraction of the total, while the vast majority of editorial power remained concentrated in the Global North. This imbalance was even more pronounced than the disparity seen between the North and the South. While scholars from the Global South are also underrepresented compared to their share of the world's population, they are still present in significant numbers on these boards. The Global East, by contrast, is almost entirely missing from the decision-making tables.

The pattern of invisibility continued when the researcher looked at the authors themselves. Across more than 6,600 author affiliations in the articles published during the study period, only about 1.5 percent came from institutions in the Global East. This is a small number, but it is not zero. The researcher found that scholars from this region do publish in these journals, but their presence is thin and scattered. They appear in every journal in the sample, yet no single journal has a share of Global East authors that exceeds five percent. Importantly, this lack of representation is not limited to the lower-ranked or less prestigious journals. The Global East is underrepresented across the entire spectrum of the field, from the most influential publications to the newer, emerging ones. This suggests that the issue is not simply about access to the top tier, but a broader, field-wide pattern of marginalization.

The study also investigated what these scholars are actually writing about. One might assume that if they are from the region, they would only write about their own countries. However, the analysis showed that scholars from the Global East are contributing to a wide range of topics. While nearly half of their articles focused on the Global East itself, a significant portion addressed the Global South or compared different regions. Some of these researchers are studying development issues in Tanzania and Cuba, bringing their own perspectives to those contexts. This finding challenges the idea that they are only interested in their own backyard; it shows they are active participants in the broader global conversation, even if their own region remains under-discussed.

Why does this invisibility persist? The researcher suggests a combination of factors on both sides of the publication process. On the side of the scholars, there are practical hurdles. Development studies as a formal field is relatively new in many post-socialist countries, often overlapping with other disciplines like international relations or economics. Scholars in these regions may be more accustomed to publishing in journals specific to their home countries or to those other disciplines, rather than in international development journals. They may also face challenges with funding, language, and access to the international networks that help researchers get their work noticed. On the side of the journals, there appears to be a lack of awareness. Editors and reviewers may not recognize research from the Global East as relevant to the core themes of development, perhaps viewing it as too specific to a single region or belonging to a different category of study known as "transition" studies. This creates a cycle where the region is not seen as a valid subject for development research, so fewer papers are submitted or accepted, which in turn keeps the region invisible.

The study concludes that the current North-South framework is too narrow to capture the full complexity of global development. By excluding the Global East, the field misses out on a rich history of rapid transformation, institutional change, and social adaptation that could offer valuable lessons for other parts of the world. The researcher argues that making the Global East visible is not about taking attention away from the Global South, but about expanding the scope of the conversation. To achieve this, he suggests that journals need to actively recruit editors and reviewers from these regions to broaden their perspectives. At the same time, scholars from the Global East need stronger networks and support to engage more directly with the international development community. Until these steps are taken, the unique experiences of these nations will remain in the shadows, unseen by the very field that claims to study the development of all nations.