This thesis is performed as a comparative small-N study making use of post-colonial theory aiming to analyse whether, and if so how, Western government agencies working in the field of 'development assistance' reinforce colonial stereotypes by availing colonial discourse. Post-colonial and discourse theory are used to challenge colonial theory, allowing to break the binary opposition and power structures of the Self and the Other, opening a third space where hybrid identities can be acknowledged.

With Critical Discourse Analysis serving as a tool in the construction of a text analytical method applied to the documents published by the Swedish governmental development agency, Sida and the British Department for International Development (DFID) to examine whether and how they (re-)produce colonial discourse in their publications.

The monumental role of Britain in the colonisation of lands and people versus Sweden's comparatively small and short territorial possession of colonies, and especially how both nations relate differently to their colonial past represented in contemporary discourse, makes this paper an interesting comparative study. The research contributes to knowledge on how Western governmental development agencies sustain and/or contest remnants of colonial structures embedded and projected through discourse.

The main findings of this study are that both the DFID and Sida engage in and (re-)produce CD in their publications. However, to a certain extent they do differ, with Sida making use of non-CD to a significantly larger extent than the DFID.