Overton window

The Overton window is a political theory that describes as a narrow "window" the range of ideas the public will accept. On this theory, an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within that window rather than on politicians' individual preferences.^[1] It is named for its originator, Joseph P. Overton (1960-2003),^[2] a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.^[3] At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office.

Overview

Overton described a spectrum from “more free” to “less free” with regard to government intervention, oriented vertically on an axis. As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location may become more or less politically acceptable. His degrees of acceptance^[4] of public ideas are roughly:

• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy

The Overton Window is an approach to identifying which ideas define the domain of acceptability within a democratic republic's possible governmental policies. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to persuade or educate the public in order to move and/or expand the window. Proponents of current policies, or similar ones, within the window seek to convince people that policies outside it should be deemed unacceptable.

After Overton's death, others have examined the concept of adjusting the window by the deliberate promotion of ideas outside of it, or "outer fringe" ideas, with the intention of making less fringe ideas acceptable by comparison.^[5] The "door-in-the-face" technique of persuasion is similar.

In media

The novel Boomsday applies the Overton window to the subject of Social Security reform in the United States. The technique used was to agitate for "voluntary transitioning," that is, suicide at a certain age in exchange for benefits, as a method of reducing the cost of Social Security. Ultimately, the goal was a more modest form of reducing the burden on younger people for the costs of Social Security.

In 2010, conservative talk show host and columnist Glenn Beck published a novel titled The Overton Window.^[6]

A similar idea was already expressed in 1868 in the novel Phineas Finn:

"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;–and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”

“It is no loss of time,” said Phineas, “to have taken the first great step in making it.”

“The first great step was taken long ago,” said Mr. Monk,–”taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards.”

— Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn

See also

• Ambit claim
• Argument to moderation
• Slippery slope
• Door-in-the-face technique
• Framing (social sciences)
• Creeping normality
• Political suicide
• Spiral of silence
• Cultural hegemony

References

External links

• Mark Pilgrim (23 August 2006). "W3C and the Overton window - includes a clear explanation]". Dive into Mark. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. 
• Diagram of the Overton Window as described by Joseph Overton