Colonialism was rule, and these organisations rule nothing

The argument

The case against the comparison begins with what colonialism was. Opponents argue that it was a system of rule: territory held by force, sovereignty transferred, law imposed, taxation levied, labour compelled and resistance suppressed by arms. Each element involved the legal and physical power to make people do things against their will. Opponents argue that a nongovernmental organisation possesses none of these powers. It cannot legislate, tax, conscript, imprison or hold territory, and it operates only where a sovereign government permits it to register and work. The mechanism opponents stress is revocability. Host states routinely regulate the sector, require registration, restrict foreign funding, audit activities, refuse permits and expel organisations outright, and opponents argue that a relationship which the weaker party can end by administrative decision is not a relationship of rule. They add that programmes are in practice negotiated with ministries and local partners, who approve, modify and sometimes block them, which is a form of leverage colonial subjects conspicuously did not have. Opponents argue that the loose use of the term carries a cost. If any asymmetry of wealth or influence counts as colonialism, then the word no longer distinguishes conquest from commerce, charity, lending, trade or cultural exchange, and loses the precision that made it useful for describing a specific historical crime. Opponents conclude that the real criticisms of the sector, which concern accountability, donor priorities, salaries and effectiveness, are better made in their own terms, and that calling it neocolonialism substitutes a charge that cannot be assessed for complaints that can.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Those who press the comparison reply that the term neocolonialism was coined precisely to name influence that works without formal rule, so pointing out the absence of rule answers a charge nobody made. They argue that control exercised through funding conditions, debt, technical advice and the power to withdraw is effective control, and that the formal right of expulsion is worth little to a government whose health system depends on the organisations it would be expelling. Asking whether the mechanism is law or money, on this account, misses where power now sits.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Defining colonialism solely as formal rule answers a charge that was never made, since neocolonialism names influence operating without it. [Rejecting P2] Control exercised through funding conditions, technical dependence and the power to withdraw is effective control, whether or not it is legal authority. [Rejecting P3] A formal right of expulsion is worth little to a government whose essential services depend on the organisations it would have to expel. [Rejecting C] The premises show that the sector does not govern, which is consistent with its exercising the kind of influence the term was invented to describe.