We live in a world that is characterized by major contrasts, where a minority of countries and people live in wealth and prosperity while the global majority lives in poverty and poor living conditions. The term development refers to the transformation of this inequality, i.e. the transition from what is considered “underdeveloped” to “developed”. Post-development theory, however, criticizes development and the discourse it constitutes, and argues that development is a Western and Eurocentric construction that is fundamentally permeated by colonial and neo-colonial power relations. Development therefore constitutes a structure within which economic, political and social parameters are set and determined by the Western world and then applied to the Third World in a neo-colonial mission to normalize and develop these countries in a Western image. This study examines the extent to which the Swedish policy-framework for developmental work and foreign aid is consistent with and/ or differs from post-development theory. The study's results showed that the policy framework is in many respects consistent with the development discourse that post-development argues for, but that it also contains central antagonistic tendencies that in vital ways suggests breakage and resistance within the current discourse.