Trade for Development? A moral political economy approach to the analysis of discourse in Sweden's Africa Policy

Abstract: In a globalized world where power-relations are changing, the need to reformulate the framework of global trade and trade-liberalization to be more conducive for development has been increasingly recognized in trade and development forums. This has resulted in increased donor focus on trade related development assistance and the moral justifications of trade-relations. This thesis set out to question possible assumptions made by the Swedish government on the moral purposes of global trade. Based on a moral political economy approach and critical discourse analysis, the central policy for the Swedish government’s African relations regime; ‘Sweden and Africa - a policy to address common challenges and opportunities’ is analyzed. Findings indicate that the discourses used in the Swedish policy contribute to the construction of ideologically hegemonic understandings of greater and deeper economic integration into the global trading system as essential to national development. It also finds that the discourses in the Swedish Africa policy seem to present freer trade and more open economies as a self-evident element of the future African development, excluding alternative notion’s of development and the role of trade in that process.