French colonial social engineering reflected a modern scientific view of society as manipulable organism

Evidence

One of the most pervasive French civilizing conceits was the idea that colonial administrators had the ability and the right to transform African social milieux in order to improve society. Recent research on the origins of the welfare state in France suggests that this conviction echoed a new, more modern way of looking at society than that of mid-nineteenth-century liberalism. New scientific knowledge, the argument goes, led to the belief in France that society was a delicately balanced organism with its own laws and internal forces, which could be manipulated. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 43

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s biopower and the emergence of social engineering in modern governance.