Aid in continuity - Swedish foreign aid policies as myth

Abstract: This thesis drives a twofold argument about the Swedish policies on foreign aid and development. First of all is it stated how there has been a continuity in this particular field of policy has since its inception in the 1960s and the issue has in the closest become depoliticised in mainstream politics. With the intent of bringing this field of policy back in to the light of politics and ideology Roland Barthes concept of myth and Martin Hall’s “mythology as methodology” is applied. The second argument is then that two intertwined processes, or breaks, have been crucial in the, for the policies, foundational understandings of development and aid and serve as civilizational myths. The first is Enlightenment’s break with the Aristotelian notion of a circular teleology in favour of an infinitely linear progressive ditto, while the second is Adam Smith’s break with mercantilism and the new understanding of the economy as a free market with absolute and mutual gains. To conclude are alternatives to the conventional understanding of development pointed towards.