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All over the world in the XNUMXst century, the concept of the Overton window has become fashionable: people believe that with its help, politicians introduce ideas that are beneficial for themselves into society. Understanding what this theory is and whether it works in practice
What is an Overton window
The Overton window is a model for understanding how ideas in a society change over time and influence politics. The concept is based on the assertion that government representatives support only generally accepted ideas and norms. Otherwise, they will lose the trust of voters.
The theory was developed in the mid-1990s by Joseph Overton, vice president of the Michigan Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Mackinac Center employees support libertarian views and call the promotion of free politics and limited government the goal of their work. They study public opinion on various social issues, conduct surveys of the population and promote to the masses new ideas that they consider reasonable and useful.
In 2003, Overton died in a plane crash and during his lifetime did not have time to bring the theory to the public field. Three years later, his colleague Nathan J. Russell did it. To explain the essence of the concept, he proposed to present a vertical scale on which:
- above – “more freedom”;
- below – “less freedom”;
- in the middle – the orders and laws adopted in society.
The New York Times cites the Health Insurance for All bill proposed by Bernie Sanders in 2013 as an example of an explanation for the Overton window. In his opinion, every American should receive free medical care through advanced insurance and not pay for pregnancy management, emergency calls and other vital health care services.
At the time, Sanders’ idea did not find support in the Senate and among voters, but in 2020 it was supported by Republicans, Democrats and other political factions. The idea of extended health insurance is no longer unacceptable – the Overton window has shifted towards greater freedom in this matter.
Nathan J. Russell’s publication also explicitly states that Overton’s concept is intended to answer a question about the role of the Mackinac Center in politics, which is sure to be asked by sponsors.
Oksana Moroz, culturologist, Associate Professor of the Media Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics:
“Joseph Overton originally proposed the concept to justify think tanks. In other words, it was needed in order to explain to those who could be the sponsor of the center the importance of action to form public opinion.
Overton explained literally on his fingers that think tanks are needed because they are able to support certain interests. And if you, citizens, want exactly the interests of your social group to be lobbied, bring money to those experts who seem to you the most reliable and successful as the engines of these interests.”
A little later, a separate page dedicated to the Overton window appeared on the Mackinac Center website. There are abstracts for understanding the concept. Here are the key ones:
“The Overton window can shift, increasing or decreasing the number of ideas that politicians can champion without undue risk to their electoral support. Sometimes politicians can move the window themselves, but rarely. More often it moves on the basis of a much more complex and dynamic phenomenon that is not easily controlled from above – the slow evolution of social values and norms.
The Overton window does not explain how politics works in general, the concept only describes one main idea: representatives of power will not support ideas that society rejects. The range of their political possibilities is limited by generally accepted social norms and values.
Overton himself and his colleagues at the Mackinac Center never claimed that it was realistic to introduce any idea into society. They only described the concept of conducting public policy. But the theses turned out to be so easy to understand that conspiracy theorists began to use them in conspiracy theories.
Six levels of the Overton scale
In 2006, political commentator and US Army officer Joshua Treviño proposed six levels for the Overton window that clearly delineated political ideas and social norms, from the unthinkable to the current laws.
How the concept became the basis for conspiracy theories
In 2010, Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman met with writer and politician Glenn Beck and briefed him on the concept. Beck used its basics in the fantastic thriller Overton Window, but he changed the key thesis that politicians adjust to social norms. In the book, politicians, on the contrary, change social views to suit their needs.
Beck’s book went straight to #2010 on the New York Times bestseller list when it was released in July 4,6 and stayed there until September. The novel received a 5 out of XNUMX on Amazon. Most readers took fiction for pure truth and decided that everything described is happening or will happen in reality.
Google Trends shows that the greatest user interest in the Overton window around the world came in June-July 2010, when Beck’s book came out.
In an interview with USA Today, Glenn Beck said that his novel is “a fiction based on real facts.” On the page explaining the Overton window, the Mackinac Center underlined in the FAQ section that it had nothing to do with the creation of the book, and that the novel was a work of fiction. But the Overton window entered the consciousness of people as a technology for managing society.
Oksana Moroz, culturologist, Associate Professor of the Media Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics:
“In a society where the mighty of this world seem to act, to live, at first glance, calmly. After all, there are people who make all the important decisions, and you specifically have “only” to give up your own subjectivity and surrender to the power of the sweet “maybe”.
And also, if the world is controlled, if there is someone’s conspiracy behind every change, then it is easier to find an enemy. It is easier to accuse those whose values are not close to us and do not like that they are unreasonable fools who are manipulated, and they are happy.
Spreading a distorted concept in our country
In our country, the concept of the Overton window was popularized in 2014 by one of the LiveJournal bloggers. He took theses from Beck’s book about the levels of the Overton window and tied them to cannibalism. In the article, the blogger explains how, in his opinion, cannibalism can be legalized and made a social norm.
Until 2014, no information about the Overton window was searched in our country: the Google Trends chart shows “0”. In 2014, the number of requests went up sharply – at that time, an article about cannibalism from LiveJournal was circulated in the media. Nikita Mikhalkov read it out on the Our Country 24 channel in the Besogon program, calling on our country to defend itself against the “technology of legalizing sin.” The abstracts were reprinted by the KP, the online publication Nakanune.RU, the websites of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Pravoslavie.Ru. In VKontakte, the publication received more than 12 reposts. But no one has publicly refuted the misunderstanding of the concept based on the Mackinac Center website.
So the concept in our country turned into a conspiracy idea. The multi-million audience of the replicated media accepted the fundamentally wrong explanation of the Overton window on faith.
Oksana Moroz, culturologist, Associate Professor of the Media Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics:
“In general, the ability to produce one’s own judgment, doubt in the position of others, education, the ability to think over the first, automatic reactions, multiplied without fail by fact-checking skills, give good results. It is difficult for such a society to quickly “sell” ideas that are “crazy”, that is, do not correspond to more or less solidary ideas about values. These values change over time, but generally go hand in hand with the history of the society. If cannibalism was not a culturally significant milestone, it is unlikely that it can be “normalized”.
Examples of the Overton window from different angles
There is no scientific or historical evidence that, using the concept of the Overton window, politicians changed public opinion and introduced laws that were beneficial to them. But a huge number of theories are put forward, and all of them are of a conspiracy nature.
Trump and the Radicalization of American Society
Vox released a video arguing that Donald Trump, as president of the United States, moved the Overton window. According to journalists, he wanted to change public opinion and impose radical views on Americans. As an example, the publication cites the statements of the head of the United States with accusations of espionage by our country and his statements about readiness for a nuclear war.
The National Review published an article accusing Trump of shifting the Overton window on national security and immigration. The publication believes that the president has changed public consciousness, calling for a wall to be erected on the border with Mexico and forbidding Muslims from entering the country.
UK exit from the European Union
The Daily Telegraph noted that in the UK, the Overton window has moved forever on the issue of the European Union. If earlier everyone considered it madness to get out of it, now the position is radically opposite.
The publication The Spectator adheres to a similar position. In his opinion, the Overton window was moved by the conservative party UKIP, which has always called on the UK government to leave the European Union.
George Dibb, head of industrial strategy at University College London (UCL), says COVID-19 has “broke the Overton window.” In his opinion, the government got the opportunity to conduct tougher political activities, hiding behind the coronacrisis. Now authorities around the world can impose restrictions and various sanctions to prevent the spread of the disease.
Dibb notes that people calmly accepted the restrictions and did not put up any resistance. He believes tough politics will remain the norm after the crisis is over.
Oksana Moroz, culturologist, Associate Professor of the Media Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics:
“Overton’s scheme in a distorted conspiracy version greatly simplifies ideas about the social structure. It can be considered working only if we assume that any changes in society are a controlled process, not connected in any way with spontaneous social movements and a combination of circumstances due to which charismatic opinion leaders appear. And conspiracy theories have nothing to do with true knowledge.”
Is it possible to apply the Overton window in practice
Mackinac Center President Joseph Lehman, in an interview with The New York Times, explained how Overton’s concept should really be considered:
“The Overton window is just a description, and not a technology for influencing the minds of people, as many mistakenly assume. Our concept explains how ideas come and go in society. Just like gravity explains why things fall.”
None of the Mackinac Center publications has the idea that the Overton window is a technology for managing society. On the contrary, they emphasize in every way that politicians adapt to social norms, and do not create them.
Oksana Moroz, culturologist, Associate Professor of the Media Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics:
“Under no circumstances would I use Overton’s diagram as a working explanatory diagram. And not even for the reason that she has an obscure origin. But because it extremely simplifies the understanding of the social world, supports discrimination, exclusion and division of the world into “us” and “them”.
By the way, the easiest way to see that the Overton window does not work in terms of conspiracy theories is to take a closer look at the vast social movements that emerged throughout the XNUMXth century. And then listen to yourself: are we ready to admit that, since huge groups of people who were participants in these social movements can be manipulated, we are all easily controlled too? That literally none of our major decisions is the result of our conscious choice? If you are ready, then you will have to agree at the same time that any concepts (like will), any ideas about what is permissible and what should be are just a induced haze. But if everything is an illusion, then why live?
Koji idiot je pisao ove gluposti? Najveća i najgluplja teorija urote je da se sve događa slučajno. A istina je da se jako malo toga događa slučajno a u politici se ništa ne događa slučajno.