Modern Life: What is the Overton Window?

‘The Overton Window’ is a term in political philosophy. It describes the range of ideas considered reasonable – or common sense – by the public at any given time.

Ideas are placed on a range, moving inwards from the window frame: from unthinkable, through radical, acceptable, sensible, popular until, in the middle of the window, they become policy. The limits of the window are somewhere between acceptable and sensible: outside the window frame, an idea could never be enacted, even if history, reason or morality tells you it is the right thing to do.

The window moves about a lot over time; in which sense, it resembles anything but a window. It is one of those metaphors, like ‘glass ceiling’ (the crucial thing about glass being that, once it’s broken, it stays broken), whose inaccuracy seems almost mischievous.

Here’s an example from social policy. Currently, pensions and a safety net for unemployment and illness are squarely within the Overton Window. A basic citizen’s income, where everyone has a guaranteed stipend from the state, is considered too radical in one direction – i.e. it’s outside the window. Giving the unemployed food in the form of vitaminfortified gruel is considered too radical in the other direction – again, it’s outside the window.

Yet this window has shifted significantly over the past decade. Ten years ago, we discussed unemployment benefits in terms of whether they provided a decent standard of living. It would have been unthinkable, in this country, to talk about food banks as part of the social safety net. And, 150 years ago, a pension would have been considered as unthinkable as a basic citizen’s income is today.

The expression was coined by Joseph P Overton, vice-chair, in the 1980s and 1990s, of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, an American free-market think tank.

It’s technically an idea from the Right. But the Left loves it – or certainly talks about it – more. That’s because the Left is more often accused of the kind of fanciful

idealism that falls outside the window. Its ideas are more often written off without examination, on the basis that the public would never accept them.

The idea has been refined and extended, in a Leftward direction, by Roberto Unger, the philosopher and Brazilian politician. He wrote, ‘An idea is considered reasonable in so far as it resembles what already exists.’ In other words, if you believe change is needed, any idea of merit will start its life outside the window.

To think of politicians as being responsible for the window is correct, up to a point. Because they are the people most concerned with polling and electability, they are very good at maintaining the window in its current position.

But they are also very bad at moving the window. Changes in the general perception of what’s extreme are more likely to come from the media, civil society (protest movements, Mumsnet) and, circuitously, academia.

Once a change has been wrought, however, politicians often pick it up pretty quickly. So, the Daily Mail flew the kite of associating immigration with terrorism, and now ‘security concerns’ have become a routine consideration in any debate about skills and borders. UK Uncut protested against tax avoidance, and George Osborne adopted it so fast that anyone would think it was his personal crusade.

Academia’s greatest success is probably climate change, where today’s global agenda would have looked like a pipe dream twenty years ago. That came about through sustained, evidenced argument, which takes quite a long time.

Moving the window involves reframing. That sounds like part of the same idea – you’ve got a window, you’ve got a frame. But it is actually from a different school: neuro-linguistics, whose major proponent is George Lakoff.

Common sense, he says, is determined by frames. What sounds like common sense through an authoritarian frame sounds ludicrous through an affectionate frame.

To change the frame – which unavoidably shifts the window, even though the frame doesn’t relate to the window! – you need to change the language you use. It’s really pretty simple, until you try to do it.