Social interventionism is an action which involves the deliberate intervention of a public or private organization into social affairs for the purpose of changing them. In other words, it is a deliberate attempt to change society in some way, "an alteration of the social structure". David Lloyd Hoffmann describes social interventionism as one of the two defining features of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...

and modern political systems (the second feature being mass politics). According to Hoffmann, a general ethos of social intervention arose across Europe by the 19th century, in which both state officials and non-governmental professionals working for charitable institutions or private companies tried to reshape their societies in accordance with scientific or aesthetic norms. This new ethos was based upon Enlightenment

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...

, with its belief that human society can and should be improved through the application of

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...

, as well as 17th century

cameralism Cameralism ( German: ''Kameralismus'') was a German science of public administration in the 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed at strong management of a centralized economy for the benefit mainly of the state. The discipline in its most n ...

that pioneered the use of

statistics Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...

and

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

in making government decisions. Social interventions could take many forms depending on the

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...

of the people or institutions undertaking them, and both the

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album '' Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * ...

and

right Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical ...

wings of European politics supported the broad idea of social interventionism, though they disagreed on how society should be improved and what "improvement" meant. Therefore, social interventionism is not defined as a specific set of goals or policies, but rather as the "impulse to manage society through the application of bureaucratic procedures and categories", or the "rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws". In the late 20th century, with the rise of the

Washington Consensus The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the "standard" reform package promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Mone ...

, social interventionism fell out of favor in international political thought.Fine, Ben. ''Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political economy and social science at the turn of the millennium''. Routledge, 2001. Pp. 144-145 Academic research of social interventions occurs in many

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...

schools around the world. Some universities also have dedicated research centres or clusters covering Social Intervention, for example the

Department of Social Policy and Intervention The Department of Social Policy and Intervention is an interdisciplinary centre for research and teaching in social policy and the systematic evaluation of social intervention based in the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford. ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

Notes

Social philosophy Social policy {{socio-stub