overton window

{{Short description|Range of ideas tolerated in public discourse}}

{{about|the political concept|the 2010 novel|The Overton Window{{!}}The Overton Window}}

The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.{{cite magazine |last1=Giridharadas |first1=Anand |title=How America's Elites Lost Their Grip |url=https://time.com/5735384/capitalism-reckoning-elitism-in-america-2019/ |access-date=22 November 2019 |magazine=TIME |date=21 November 2019}} It is also known as the window of discourse.{{Cite web|last=Jackson |first=Stuart |date=20 June 2023 |title=The Global Mobility Overton Window |publisher=Sterling Lexicon, a Suddath Company |url=https://www.sterlinglexicon.com/resources/the-global-mobility-overton-window |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250113123617/https://www.sterlinglexicon.com/resources/the-global-mobility-overton-window |archive-date=13 January 2025 |url-status=live }} The key to the concept is that the window changes over time; it can shift, or shrink or expand.{{Cite web|title=A Brief Explanation of The Overton Window |date=2019 |publisher=Mackinac Center for Public Policy |url=https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250210115303/https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow |archive-date=10 February 2025 |url-status=live }} It exemplifies "the slow evolution of societal values and norms".

The term is named after the American policy analyst and former senior vice president at Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Joseph Overton, who proposed that the political viability of an idea depends mainly on whether it falls within an acceptability range, rather than on the individual preferences of politicians using the term or concept.{{Cite web |url=http://www.mackinac.org/bio.aspx?ID=12 |title=Joseph P. Overton |publisher=Mackinac Center for Public Policy |access-date=30 August 2013}} According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician may recommend without appearing too extreme, in order to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that particular time.{{Cite web |last=Astor |first=Maggie |date=February 26, 2019 |title=How the Politically Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/politics/overton-window-democrats.html |access-date=October 16, 2024 |website=www.nytimes.com}}

Summary

In the early 1990s, Overton described a spectrum from "more free" to "less free" with regard to governmental intervention, that was oriented vertically on an axis (to avoid comparison with the left-right political spectrum).{{Cite web |url= http://www.mackinac.org/11398 |title=Glenn Beck Highlights Mackinac Center's "Overton window" |last=Lehman |first=Joseph G. |date=23 November 2009 |publisher=Mackinac Center for Public Policy |access-date=16 April 2017}} As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location on the scale may become more or less politically acceptable. After Overton's death, his Mackinac Center for Public Policy colleague, Joseph Lehman, further developed the idea and named it after Overton.{{Cite web |url= https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/25/overton-window-explained-definition-meaning-217010 |title=How an Obscure Conservative Theory Became the Trump Era's Go-to Nerd Phrase |last= Robertson |first=Derek |work=Politico |date=25 February 2018 |access-date=10 September 2019}}

The political commentator Joshua Treviño has postulated that the six degrees of acceptance of public ideas are roughly:{{Cite web |last=Treviño |first=Joshua |date=29 April 2006 |title=The Overton window. |url=http://www.swordscrossed.org/?p=50 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716000532/http://www.swordscrossed.org/?p=50 |archive-date=16 July 2006 |access-date=28 June 2023 |website=Swords Crossed}}

unthinkable
radical
acceptable
sensible
popular
policy

The Overton window is an approach to identifying the ideas that define the spectrum of acceptability of governmental policies. The premise of the concept Overton defined was that politicians typically act freely only within a window seen as acceptable. Shifting the Overton window would involve proponents of policies outside the window persuading the public to expand the window while proponents of current policies, or similar ones within the window, attempt to convince people that policies outside the status quo should be deemed unacceptable. According to Lehman, who coined the term:

{{Cquote|The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it.}}

According to Lehman, the concept is just a description of how ideas work, not about advocacy of extreme policy proposals. In an interview with The New York Times, he said:

{{Cquote|It just explains how ideas come in and out of fashion, the same way that gravity explains why something falls to the earth. I can use gravity to drop an anvil on your head, but that would be wrong. I could also use gravity to throw you a life preserver; that would be good.}}

Use of the shifting scale concept has been adopted as relevant in broader areas and one may find references to an Overton window applied regarding shifting acceptability in fields without political policy implications.{{cite journal |last1=Krick |first1=Jeanne A. |last2=Feltman |first2=Dalia M. |last3=Carter |first3=Brian S. |title=Buy-in and breakthroughs: the Overton window in neonatology for the resuscitation of extremely preterm infants |journal=Journal of Perinatology |date=17 August 2023 |volume=43 |issue=12 |pages=1548–1551 |doi=10.1038/s41372-023-01755-9 |pmid=37591944 |s2cid=260970061 }}

overton window

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