The study examines the delimitation of the economic development models, dependent versus nationalist capitalism, in the emerging countries of Eastern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. We took into account a series of analyses on how the adopted development policy influenced the economic growth in those regions, in order to explain one of the reasons for the existing differences in their economic performance. Throughout the article, based on empirical data, we conclude that the capitalist development model chosen by Eastern Europe was the dependent one, being thus more vulnerable to external shocks like in the recent context of global recession.