Dr Joshua Black is a lecturer in Australian political studies within the Vice-Chancellor's Centre of Public Ideas at the University of Canberra. He has previously been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, Palace Letters Fellow at the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University and a ministerial speechwriter. He is the author of Performance Politics: Australian politicians and the stories they tell (NewSouth 2026) and co-editor, with Frank Bongiorno and Carolyn Holbrook, of Gold Standard? Remembering the Hawke Government (NewSouth 2026).
To borrow a concise definition from foreign policy expert Thomas Wright, the Overton window is the idea that there is an “acceptable range of political discourse in a society” at a given time. In democratic systems, leaders and parties tend to stick within these boundaries to remain popular and legitimate.
