The Overton Window

Hey Hey! How are you doing today? Glad you could click by. Help yourself to a mug of coffee and a virtual treat. Say...I just finished reading The Overton Window. Fascinating faction.

The novel is based on the Overton window concept in political theory, in which at any given moment there is a range of policies related to any particular issue that are considered politically acceptable ("in the window"), and other policies that politicians seeking to gain or hold public office do not feel they can recommend without being considered too far outside the mainstream ("outside the window"). Moving the window would make previously radical ideas seem reasonable. Beck has referred to the book as "faction" – fiction based on facts and it shows how politicians 'move the window'. In other words, how, through public relations, they can manipulate how the public perceives any particular issue slowly towards the way they want the public to feel about it.


It is named for its originator, Joseph P. Overton (1960-2003), a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. 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 of public ideas are roughly (from left to right): 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.

While the novel is based in the USA, I am sure the principle of adjusting/manipulating the Overton Window is prevalent throughout the world. At the very least, the novel is  a very interesting read.

See ya, eh!

Bob