11/20/21, 9:23 PM Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

Social engineering (political science)

Social engineering is a top-down effort to influence particular attitudes and social behaviors on
a large scale—most often undertaken by governments, but also carried out by media, academia or
private groups—in order to produce desired characteristics in a target population. Social
engineering can also be understood philosophically as a deterministic phenomenon where the
intentions and goals of the architects of the new social construct are realized. Some social
engineers use the scientific method to analyze and understand social systems in order to design
the appropriate methods to achieve the desired results in the human subjects.

Contents
Overview
History
Cases
Karl Popper
See also
References
Further reading

Overview
Decision-making can affect the safety and survival of billions of people. The scientific theory
expressed by German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in his 1905 study The Present Problems of
Social Structure,[1] proposes that society can no longer operate successfully using outmoded
methods of social management. To achieve the best outcomes, all conclusions and decisions must
use the most advanced techniques and include reliable statistical data, which can be applied to a
social system. According to this, social engineering is a data-based scientific system used to
develop a sustainable design so as to achieve the intelligent management of Earth's resources and
human capital with the highest levels of freedom, prosperity, and happiness within a population.

Social engineering can be carried out by any organization, without regard to scale, or sponsorship
in the public or private sector. Some of the most comprehensive, and most pervasive campaigns of
social engineering are those initiated by powerful central governments with the systems of
authority to widely affect the individuals and cultures within their purview. As a result of abuse by
authoritarian regimes, the term has in cases been imbued with a negative connotation.

Social engineering can be used as a means to achieve a wide variety of different results, as
illustrated by the different governments and other organizations that have employed it. Discussion
of the possibilities for such manipulation became especially active following World War II, with
the advent of mass television, and continuing discussion of techniques of social engineering,
particularly in advertising, and bias-based journalism, remains quite pertinent in the western
model of consumer capitalism. Journalism, when the intent is not to report objectively, but to
report with an intent to sway popular attitudes and social behaviors or to "shape public opinion",
comes under the scope of social engineering. This also applies when information that would bring
into question the viewpoints and social goals of a journalistic establishment is withheld in favor of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science) 1/6
11/20/21, 9:23 PM Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

other information. Within ethical journalism the knowledge of both personal and
establishment/producer bias allows the journalist to avoid social engineering by correcting it and
by reporting factual evidence in a way which does not promote or oppose attitudes and social
behaviors, and thereby portray or deny them as the "popular" attitude and preferable social
behavior by virtue of the establishment's authority or possession of a national or international
platform.

Social engineering practiced in exclusion of cultural elements and interacting societies has led to
pogroms and to mass murders, particularly when employed by authoritarian regimes. Often this
occurs because these cultures or societies are perceived as possessing "undesirable" traits. The
acting engineers have used the simple "effective" tool of violence rather than the difficult and time-
consuming methods of persuasion and logic.

R. D. Ingthorsson states that a human being is a biological creature from birth but is from then on
shaped as a person through social influences (upbringing/socialisation) and is in that sense a
social construction, a product of society.

History
The Dutch industrialist J.C. Van Marken (nl) introduced the term sociale ingenieurs ("social
engineers") in an essay in 1894. The idea was that modern employers needed the assistance of
specialists in handling the human challenges, just as they needed technical expertise (traditional
engineers) to deal with non-human challenges (materials, machines, processes). The term came to
America in 1899, when the notion of "social engineering" was also launched as the name of the
task of the social engineer in this sense. "Social engineering" was the title of a small journal in 1899
(renamed "Social Service" from 1900), and in 1909 it was the title of a book by the journal's former
editor, William H. Tolman (translated into French in 1910). This marked the end of the usage of
the terminology in the sense created by Van Marken. With the Social Gospel sociologist Edwin L.
Earp's The Social Engineer, published during the "efficiency craze" of 1911 in the U.S., a new usage
of the term was launched that has since then become standard: "Social engineering" came to refer
to an approach of treating social relations as "machineries",[2] to be dealt with in the manner of the
technical engineer.[2]

A prerequisite of social engineering is a body of reliable information about the society that is to be
engineered and effective tools to carry out the engineering. The availability of such information
has dramatically increased within the past one hundred years. Prior to the invention of the
printing press, it was difficult for groups outside of the wealthy to gain access to a reliable body of
information, as the media for conveying the information was prohibitively expensive. With the rise
of the information age, information can be distributed and produced on an unprecedented scale.
Similarly digital technology has increased the variety and access of effective tools. However, it has
also created questionably reliable bodies of information.

Cases
Radical social-engineering campaigns can occur in countries with authoritarian governments,
while non-authoritarian regimes tend to rely on more sustained social-engineering campaigns that
foster more gradual, but ultimately far-reaching, change. Governments also influence behavior
more subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy, for
instance, and have done so for centuries.

In the 1920s the government of the Soviet Union embarked on a campaign to fundamentally alter
the behavior and ideals of Soviet citizens, to replace the old social frameworks of the Russian
Empire with a new Soviet culture, and to develop the New Soviet man. Commissars became agents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science) 2/6
11/20/21, 9:23 PM Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

of social engineering.[3]
The Soviets used newspapers, books, film, mass relocations, and even
architectural-design tactics to serve as a "social condenser" and to change personal values and
private relationships. In a manner of violence, political executions (for example the Night of the
Murdered Poets in Moscow in 1952), and the fear of becoming a victim of mass murder, played an
influential role in the social engineering frameworks in Soviet Russia. Similar examples include
the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" (1958–1961), Mao's "Cultural Revolution" (1966–1976)
programs and the Khmer Rouge's deurbanization of Cambodia (1975–1979).

In Singapore, the Ethnic Integration Policy attempts to promote a mix of all races within each
subsidized housing district in order to foster social and racial cohesion while providing citizens
with affordable housing.[4]

In British and Canadian jurisprudence, changing public attitudes about a behaviour is accepted as
one of the key functions of laws prohibiting the behaviour.

Social theorists of the Frankfurt School in 1918-1933 Weimar Germany, like Theodor Adorno,
observed the new phenomenon of mass culture and commented on its new manipulative power in
the 1920s. These theorists left Germany around 1930 due to the rise of the Nazi Party, and many of
them became connected with the Institute for Social Research in the United States. After the
consolidation of Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards, the new government also made use of
methods to influence political attitudes and to redefine personal relationships. The Reich Ministry
of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels was a synchronized,
sophisticated and effective tool for shaping public opinion.

In Greece, the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 attempted to steer Greek public opinion not only
by propaganda but also by inventing new words and slogans such as palaiokommatismos (old-
partyism), Ellas Ellinon Christianon (Greece of Christian Greeks), and Ethnosotirios Epanastasis
(nation-saving revolution, meaning coup d'état).

In Tanzania in the 1970s, the government pursued a policy of enforced villagisation under
Operation Vijiji in order to promote collective farming.[5]

The Romanian rural systematization program (especially in the 1980s) promoted "agro-industrial
centres" at the expense of traditional village social structures..

In Egypt, social engineering is being practiced by the current authoritarian regime and by the
media controlled by the Egyptian Intelligence, Military since 2013 coup d'état to overthrow the
first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi.[6][7][8] Since then, Sisi (President from
2014 onwards) has been using social engineering by controlling the media and Internet
providers.[9][10][11]

In India, social engineering was effectively done in the state of Bihar, on a grand scale, to unify
different castes after 2005.[12] The coherency of voting allegiances based on social extremes among
upper castes and Dalits was challenged by this vote (Poll in Indian reference).[13][14][15]

Karl Popper
In his classic political science book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, volume I, The Spell of
Plato (1945), Karl Popper examined the application of the critical and rational methods of science
to the problems of the open society. In this respect, he made a crucial distinction between the
principles of democratic social engineering (what he called "piecemeal social engineering") and
Utopian social engineering.

Popper wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science) 3/6
11/20/21, 9:23 PM Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

The piecemeal engineer will, accordingly, adopt the method of searching for, and
fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for,
and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.[16]

According to Popper, the difference between "piecemeal social engineering" and "Utopian social
engineering" is:

"It is the difference between a reasonable method of improving the lot of man, and a
method which, if really tried, may easily lead to an intolerable increase in human
suffering. It is the difference between a method which can be applied at any moment,
and a method whose advocacy may easily become a means of continually postponing
action until a later date, when conditions are more favorable. And it is also the
difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far been really
successful, at any time, and in any place, and a method which, wherever it has been
tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of reason, and if not to its own
abandonment, at any rate to that of its original blueprint.[16]

See also
Demographic engineering
Engineers of the human soul
Eugenics
Media manipulation
Nudge theory
Paternalism
Political engineering
Social control
Total institution

References
1. Tonnies, F. (1905). The present problems of social structure. The American Journal of
Sociology, vol. 10 (5), pp. 569–688.
2. Östlund, David (2007). "A knower and friend of human beings, not machines: The business
career of the terminology of social engineering, 1894–1910" (http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/re
cord.jsf?pid=diva2%3A182548&dswid=5876). Ideas in History. 2 (2): 43–82. ISSN 1890-1832
(https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1890-1832). Retrieved 2016-09-05.
3. Kort, Michael G. (2019) [1985]. "Into the Fire: The Civil War". The Soviet Colossus: History and
Aftermath (https://books.google.com/books?id=Ms-SDwAAQBAJ) (8 ed.). New York:
Routledge. ISBN 9781351171861. Retrieved 18 November 2021. "[...] class war [...] was a
fundamental part of Bolshevik social engineering and the party's mission to build a new
socialist world. [...] along with victory in the civil war came the rise to prominence of a new type
of party cadre: the tough, utterly ruthless functionary [...] these cadres fit the popular image of
the gruff, leather-jacketed commissar rushing from emergency to emergency on his
motorcycle."
4. "Ethnic Integration Policy is implemented" (http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history/events/d8fea65
6-d86e-4658-9509-974225951607#2). Singapore History. 1989-03-01.
5. Lange, Siri. (2008) Land Tenure and Mining In Tanzania (http://www.cmi.no/publications/public
ation/?3008=land-tenure-and-mining-in-tanzania). Bergen: Chr. Michelson Institute, p. 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science) 4/6
11/20/21, 9:23 PM Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

6. "Military removes Morsi" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/07/03/revolution-in-

egypt-military-removes-president-morsi-and-suspends-the-constitution/#4ee822dc6202).
Forbes.
7. Kirkpatrick, David D. (2013-07-03). "Military Coup" (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/worl
d/middleeast/egypt.html). The New York Times .
8. "Coup in Egypt" (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/16/egypt-coup-catastr
ophe-mohamed-morsi). The Guardian.
9. "Egypt Blocks VPN" (https://www.flashrouters.com/blog/2017/06/21/egypt-blocks-vpn-provider
s/).
10. "Egypts Blocks 46 Websites" (https://egyptianstreets.com/2017/06/11/egypt-blocks-at-least-46-
websites-including-medium/). Egyptian Streets. 2017-06-11.
11. "Egypt Blocks Major Websites and VPNS in Censorship Crackdown |" (https://torguard.net/blo
g/egypt-blocks-major-websites-and-vpns-censorship-crackdown/).
12. "Bihar polls 2015: BJP banks on PM Narendra Modi's popularity and its social engineering
experiment" (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bihar-polls-2015-bj
p-banks-on-pm-narendra-modis-popularity-and-its-social-engineering-experiment/articleshow/4
9315429.cms). Economictimes.indiatimes.com. The Economic Times. 2015-10-12. Retrieved
2016-04-01.
13. "Bihar, after Delhi" (http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/bihar-after-delhi/). The
Indian Express. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
14. "Nitish's dismal show a case of monumental miscalculation" (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ni
tish-kumar-bihar-lok-sabha-poll-results-jdu/1/362138.html). Indiatoday.intoday.in. Bihar, News
– India Today. 2014-05-16. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
15. Mishra, Mayank (2015-07-11). "Social engineering: Bharatiya Janata Party's Bihar formula to
swing a vote?" (http://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/social-engineering-bharatiya-
janata-party-s-bihar-formula-to-swing-a-vote-115071100835_1.html). Business Standard India.
Business Standard News. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
16. Popper, K. 1971 The Open Society and Its Enemies Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press

Further reading
"The Best That Money Can’t Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, and War (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=kOeq0yP5lXkC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=%22social%20engineering%
22&f=false)", Jacque Fresco, 2002.
Peter Swirski. American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and
Political History. New York, Routledge, 2011.
Charles Arthur Willard. Liberalism and the Social Grounds of Knowledge. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992.
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Noam Chomsky. 1998.
Seeing Like a State (https://books.google.com/books?id=W0seMALXWcQC&printsec=frontcov
er#v=onepage&q=%22social%20engineering%22&f=false). James C. Scott. 1999.
Social Engineering (https://books.google.com/books?id=Ep-lRoFJFY4C&printsec=frontcover#v
=onepage&q&f=false). Adam Podgórecki. 1996.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_engineering_(political_science)&oldid=1055857519"

This page was last edited on 18 November 2021, at 06:25 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;

additional terms may apply. By using
this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science) 5/6
11/20/21, 9:23 PM Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science) 6/6