This paper will identify and analyze the basic institutional characteristics of the region of South East Europe (SEE6), because the building of institutions is one of the main conditions for sustainable development. Basic theoretical and practical barriers, that crucially influenced the current unfavorable transitional institutional characteristics in SEE6, will be researched in a selective way. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the essential institutional differences of this region in comparison with developed countries, particularly in terms of real institutional change, the application of institutional pluralism and the main institutional barriers. The paper starts from the hypothesis that ignoring the institutional pluralism and domination of alternative institutions in SEE6 led to dysfunctionality of institutional change, which had a negative impact on all indicators of economic development in the surveyed countries. The emphasis is on the factors of monistic anti-institutional action, from which the alternative institutions stand out for their destructive significance. It points to devastating and anti-developmental consequences of their actions, and their theoretical support of neoliberal type, which is in practice vulgarized and converted into a quasi-neoliberalism. It identifies the real and concrete causes of reproduced institutional vacuum. The findings from the study suggest that countries of the SEE6 region should apply civilization-proven development models of institutional pluralism type. This indicates the importance of taking real institutional changes and urgent overcoming the quasi-institutional forms in order to successfully valorize the economic resources in the countries of SEE6.

The subject of this paper is a critique of the selective theoretical modelings of economic realities, which are monistic (quasi-neoliberal) and mathematical-statistical in nature. In this sense, the theme named Contemporary Substitutes of the Political Economy is defined. The aim of this research is that the above-mentioned modeling of economic reality would be described as a deliberate motion from the analysis and explanation of fundamental economic problems towards secondary issues. Therefore, we characterize them as unfair and programmed ways of fogging the essence of economic problems and crisis. We start from the hypothesis that these modelings replaced and virtually eliminated the former synthesized and useful political-economic analysis. In this paper, we have used a descriptive, comparative methods, panel sample and a schematic logic modeling. The results of our research show that the substitution of political economy by neoclassical and neoliberal economics is performed over a longer period, and through prioritizing the mathematical and statistical econometric analysis. As a proof, we present our selective research panel using a sample of 39 issues from five international journals, which can be found in databases SSCI and Scopus. This research is limited by the unavailability of most journals on the Internet and in printed publications. The application area of the research results is an economic theory. In conclusion, we ascertain the need for greater affirmation of political economy, which in combination with new institutional theory, enables a more realistic view of social and economic reality.