Western law was the core apparatus of colonial rule

Evidence

Law is perhaps the single most important apparatus by way of which, in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the colonial state ruled over its populations. As Mahmood Mamdani puts it, “one single claim defined a shared civilizational project: whether rulers or ruled, Westerners or non-Westerners, all those subjects to the power of the state would be governed through imported Western law.” — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 38

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the governing claim that law, not force, was the primary colonial ruling instrument.