James C. Scott's term for an ideology of confident faith in scientific and technical progress, the rational design of social order and the mastery of nature, used to justify large-scale planning that overrides local knowledge.
In more detail
Scott (1998) traced high modernism through scientific forestry, Le Corbusier's urbanism, Brasília, Soviet collectivisation and Tanzanian villagisation. He argued that it becomes dangerous when combined with an authoritarian state and a civil society too weak to resist. High modernism is not identical to modernity or to planning as such: Scott praised modest, adaptive interventions that leave room for practical knowledge. The concept is now applied to data-driven and algorithmic governance.