IN 1942, the Los Angeles Times took to its editorial page to argue for the imprisonment of American citizens who looked a certain way.
A racist editor hadn’t suddenly taken over the paper, and it wasn’t a commentary on crime or law and order. The remains of Pearl Harbor were still smoldering and anyone who looked Japanese was a suspect. “This is war,” the Times editorial board said while advocating for President Franklin Roosevelt’s Japanese imprisonment plan, “and in wartime, the preservation of the nation becomes the first duty. The time has come to realize that the rigors of war demand proper detention of Japanese and their immediate removal from the most acute danger spots. It is not a pleasant task. But it must be done and done now. There is no safe alternative.”
Crises create panic, and as we’ve seen too many times throughout history, that panic can convince entire nations of people to allow (and sometimes encourage) their governments to expand their power and violate people’s rights—sometimes in truly heinous ways.
How? How can such unthinkable policies be viewed as acceptable during crises?
A concept called the Overton Window can explain.
Government policies on a spectrum
Crises don’t generate new policies at random. Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman explained, “When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”
The Overton Window is a model for understanding how different policy ideas rise or fall in acceptance and popularity in societies. In short, the Overton Window represents the “window” of political and policy ideas that are viewed—by the public and, in turn, politicians—as acceptable at any given time. For example, laws governing alcohol sales range on a spectrum from completely banning all alcohol sales and consumption, to no restrictions at all on alcohol sales or consumption. In the early days of our nation, the Overton Window for alcohol laws was few or no restrictions on alcohol sales; during the prohibition era, the Overton Window shifted to complete bans on production and consumption; and today, the COVID-19 shutdowns have shifted the Overton Window for alcohol (depending on the state) to fewer restrictions on alcohol-to-go sales and delivery.
This concept takes its name from the late Joseph Overton, a senior vice president at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy who developed the idea.
The Overton Window can both shift and expand, either increasing or shrinking the number of ideas politicians can support without unduly risking their electoral support. Sometimes a politician can move the Overton Window by courageously endorsing a policy lying outside the window, but this is rare. More often, the window moves based on the slow evolution of societal values and norms.
But in a crisis situation, that process of gradual movement is likely to be rapidly accelerated and disrupted. Crises create swift change and uncertainty. During crises, politicians believe they need to “do something” to keep the public’s favor, and people expect elected officials to take action to defuse the crisis.
That is how shifts of the Overton Window that normally would take years or decades can happen in weeks or days.
The crisis shift
Crises can be real or imagined, apparent or obscured. If a crisis is apparent to all, the people will already be in a mood for change and the politicians will dutifully deliver it. For example, the 2008 financial collapse was obvious to everyone once it had begun. It triggered a rapid shift in the Overton Window that produced major policy changes, including massive bank bailouts, record stimulus spending, partial nationalizations of industry, and new financial regulatory bureaucracies. Policies that had been unthinkable before the crisis became status quo in a matter of months.
Sometimes crises aren’t as obvious. One crisis, believed by many to be imaginary, was the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the early 2000s. That question led to the policy of war in Iraq, but not before a public campaign of persuasion had shifted the Overton Window, making a lawmaker’s vote for war in Iraq relatively safer politically.
Which brings us to 2020, when the emergence and rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus precipitated myriad emergency policies aimed at inhibiting the spread of the pandemic. Within a matter of weeks, government officials at every level had embraced extreme emergency actions that included shutting down businesses, ordering citizens to limit their movements, and embracing technological surveillance solutions aimed at tracking the virus’ spread. This marked a sudden shift in the Overton Window in which people were willing to accept enhanced government powers in response to a crisis—at least for a short time.
In some cases, the Overton Window can shift too far in one direction too swiftly, causing a backlash of public opinion. That has been the case with some states’ COVID-19 policies. Many citizens of all political persuasions have reacted strongly against questionable and arbitrary government overreaches with some lockdowns, business shutdowns, and unaccountable surveillance.
Must every crisis lead to bigger, more intrusive government? Not necessarily. In fact, one of the strengths of the Overton Window as a model for understanding public policy is that it can move in any direction—including toward greater liberty and individual freedom.
People will always clamor for security in a crisis. Yet history has shown how that “security” can just as easily come in the form of reasonable, temporary measures, or what the LA Times described as “not a pleasant task.” As Friedman said, “The actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” So perhaps the best way to ensure that the Overton Window shifts in directions that ensure greater liberty is by ensuring liberty-centric policies are always “lying around.”
Joseph G. Lehman is president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan. The Mackinac Center originated the concept of the Overton Window.