Personal Stake Research Articles

The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas by Janek Wasserman (review)

Reviewed by: The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas by Janek Wasserman Daniel C. Villanueva Janek Wasserman. The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas. New Haven: Yale UP, 2019. 368 p. "We are all Austrians now," Rep. Ron Paul famously claimed after his third-place finish in the 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses. Janek Wasserman relates this anecdote to illustrate how under the radar, yet quite influential, the free-market Austrian School has remained since its founding. His comprehensive yet concise work expertly details its intellectual origins and evolution over the intervening century as it split into competing branches and centers of influence. He also convincingly demonstrates the mechanism of the "appropriation of the idea of the Austrian School for ideological and political purposes" (273) in more recent decades as the School's intellectual lodestars passed from the scene but the desire for sociopolitical relevance and influence remained. Wasserman first made his mark in Austrian Studies in 2017 with the publication of Black Vienna: The Radical Right in the Red City, 1918-1938. That lengthy analysis of the far-right antagonists of Austromarxist "Red" Viennese filled an important lacuna in interdisciplinary Englishlanguage fin-de-siècle research. Marginal Revolutionaries does the same over a longer stretch of Austrian intellectual history by first stressing diverse aspects of the societal environment in which what we know today as Austrian economics came to fruition. For while its founding is generally acknowledged to be 1871, the year in which Carl Menger's Principles of Economics and its theory of marginal utility was published, the School thereafter always had several intellectual leaders who were often at odds with each other as to the School's prescription for public policy and how broad its interdisciplinary nature should reach. The first two chapters broadly contextualize the genesis of the Austrian school in prewar Vienna's "Founder's Period"—the last great bourgeois flourishing from the 1870s through the turn of the century. From there it chronicles the rise of the School's free-market opposition to Austromarxism and the height of the School's domestic influence in the late Habsburg and interwar period. The third and fourth chapters illustrate the effects of the Nazi rise to power on the [End Page 258] School's free-market approach, the exile of the School's leading lights abroad, and the resultant rethinking of the methods by which academic and political influence could be gained in the service of free-market economics elsewhere in free Europe and the New World. Chapters Five and Six discuss the growing influence of social science and humanities disciplines on the School as it found new funding sources, foundations, and favor in the Anglophone world, and how this moved the School away from its Central European origins and theoretical concerns. The last chapter—perhaps most relvant to the majority of readers, and thus too brief—outlines the contemporary legacy of the Austrian School, including its appropriation by the Alt-Right. Wasserman's meticulous research and narrative bring us several important insights. Among the most useful is the repeated demonstration—with different examples over its 125-year history—that the Austrian School must be seen foremost not as a bounded methodology of economic theorizing, but rather as an evolving, contradictory, and multidisciplinary movement seeking influence differently in changing sociopolitical contexts. Paraphrasing Voltaire, Wasserman makes a strong case that the object of analysis is neither properly "…Austrian, nor a school nor economics" (6). Another important aspect is that the longevity and influence of the Austrian School has often been due not to the free interplay of the laissezfaire marketplace of ideas that Austrian proponents claim is the iron law of authentic success. Rather, its longevity is likely due to a wellcoordinated infrastructure of foundations and private donors with a personal stake in specific policy outcomes. Finally, Wasserman's careful archival research also sheds new light on the personalities of key Austrian School figures, showing that public and vitriolic feuds carried on within the School masked a generally supportive environment in the mission of advancing free-market ideology. Perhaps the best example is evidence that two bitter rivals in public, Ludwig...

The Outrage Effect of Personal Stake, Familiarity, Effects on Children, and Fairness on Climate Change Risk Perception Moderated by Political Orientation.

Outrage factors are perceived characteristics of risk that provoke emotional responses and influence risk perception. Although several studies examined how multiple influences affect climate change risk perception, outrage factors have not been comprehensively assessed in the context of climate change risk perception. Using an online survey in South Korea (n = 592), we investigated outrage factors associated with climate change risk perception and whether political orientation moderates these outrage effects. We considered 11 of 20 outrage factors: voluntariness, controllability, familiarity, fairness, uncertainty, delayed effects, effects on children, trust, reversibility, personal stake, and human vs. natural origin. Factors that overlapped with the selected outrage factors or those that were not relevant to climate change were excluded. The survey revealed that the climate change risk perception of an individual increased when they perceived climate change to be relevant to their personal lives, when they felt unfamiliar with climate change, when they thought climate change would have a severe impact on children, or when they thought climate change would have unequal consequences. Moreover, respondents who identified as political conservatives were subject to a greater outrage effect of personal stake for climate change. The implications of the outrage effect on climate change risk perception and the greater vulnerability of conservatives to outrage effect are discussed.

How teachers deliberate policy: Taking a stance on third grade reading legislation in online language teacher education

In education, decision making frequently involves ethically-imbued choices between two or more solutions to an educational ‘problem.’ Teacher education may utilize asynchronous discussions to prepare teachers to critically navigate this landscape. To understand how participants in an online English language (EL) teacher licensure program manage disagreements as they accomplish taking a stance over critical issues, this study uses a discourse analytic perspective influenced by conversation analysis to examine asynchronous discussions. Analysis illustrates how participants managed their epistemic stance while disagreeing by (1) taking stances that were often softened or hedged; (2) grounding their disagreements through particular discursive strategies including sharing personal experiences or posing rhetorical questions; and (3) making morally-imbued claims that were difficult to disagree with. Findings suggest that although topics may encourage participants to take sides on critical issues, personal stake in the moral matters raised may make it difficult for participants to shift their initial stance.

The Outrage Effect of Personal Stake, Dread, and Moral Nature on Fine Dust Risk Perception Moderated by Media Use

ABSTRACT Outrage factors are perceived characteristics of risk that provoke emotional responses and influence risk perception by individuals. We investigated outrage factors that are associated with risk perception regarding fine dust. A nationwide online survey (N = 1,000) measured the magnitude of 14 perceived outrage factors and media use in a South Korean population. As a result, the hypothetical three outrage factors of personal stake, dread, and moral nature were found to be influential. The risk perception increased when people perceived that the environmental hazard has personal implications or is associated with fearful images and irresponsible government/corporate actions. The risk perception was also heightened when fine dust was thought to cause large-scale damage to many people simultaneously. Those using news media frequently showed higher risk perception than those using it less frequently. However, heavy media users were affected to a lesser degree by the outrage effects voluntariness and effects on children. The implications of the direct and indirect outrage effect are discussed in light of risk perception studies.

Jane HirshfieldLedger

Equally fascinating are the texts following the poems—where we also get a glimpse into the surprising complexity of translation approaches employed across this map of this endangered poetic world. For example, the Tamajaght poetry quoted above is a third cousin to the original— first transcribed by the poet, Hawad, from Tamajaght into a graphic illustrated version , rendering the poetry using a modified Tifinagh alphabet with added vowels; then it has passed through French translation by his scholar-wife, Hélène Claudot-Hawad, thence into English by Judith Fleiss. By the way, this poem about Ti-n-El (“She of the season of new grasses”) and others explore the forced exile and unresolved fate of the Tuareg people. Because of the dizzying variety of translation strategies and challenges, there is a necessary unevenness in translation, with some stilted lines and other minor stylistic clutter creeping in. No matter. This volume enchants, dignifies, educates, uplifts, transports , and ultimately may even help redeem and heal us, in our presently unhinged global frenzy—if only we let it. There is much more to do, of course— these sixty poets/languages represent but a slightest fraction of our endangered literary heritage now disappearing by the month. Even so, Chris McCabe has made something exceptional here. This is that rare collection that every one of us can treasure and pass on. I cannot hope strongly enough that this book may find its way into our libraries—and our hearts. Andrew Singer Trafika Europe Elisabeth Åsbrink And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain:The Heartbreaking True Story of a Family Torn Apart by War Trans. Saskia Vogel. New York. Other Press. 2020. 421 pages. A LIFETIME—seventy-five years— has passed since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, and other hellholes emblematic of the European extermination of perceived Otherness. Lest we forget, we need books like And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain: a slow-burning, relentless investigation of the persecution of the Jews and, at the same time, a compassionate study of an exiled child and family bonds stretched to breaking point. Elisabeth Åsbrink is a brilliant journalist with a personal stake in exposing dark periods in contemporary history. The core narrative in 1947, her wonderfully readable “biography of a year,” is the post–World War II struggle of Europe’s surviving Jewry to find a refuge in Israel; the historical account is illuminated by the story of her father, a Jewish-Hungarian boy whose family is gradually eliminated. And in the Vienna Woods is an earlier work, and the child adrift is another Jewish boy, Otto Ullmann. Otto’s parents loved him, their only child, so well that they sent the thirteen-year-old away from Vienna within a year of Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938. Just a few months later, it had become clear that Jews would be brutally punished for existing at all. Books in Review Jane Hirshfield Ledger New York. Knopf. 2020. 128 pages. A NEW VOLUME of poems by acclaimed poet Jane Hirshfield is an event. After reading the poems in Ledger—a capacious, varied volume—it seems as if ordinary life is richer and deeper than before, yet it is hard to pin down why. Her limpid style, sometimes riddling yet never obscure, provides part of the answer. With every word, Hirshfield allows us to enter her poems and feel at home there. Even when she challenges us most forcefully , she does so together with us, holding our gaze, inhabiting a shared space. Not for nothing does she see poetry as a vehicle for transformation—and yet the poetic speaker feels like a friend rather than a guide or moralist . Humility is often her very subject: “In the end, / I was like others. / A person.” Hirshfield’s poems work against our typical , daily egocentrism. This interest unifies her oeuvre, allowing us to recognize her poems by their perspective and curiously voiceless voice rather than by more conventional means, such as imagery or leitmotifs. A Hirshfield poem is an exercise in opening the self. This is not an evacuation as much as an endless multiplication: until we see each character in a story...

Harry Potter and the Cedarville Censors by Brian Meadors

Reviewed by: Harry Potter and the Cedarville Censors by Brian Meadors Michele Daniele Castleman (bio) Harry Potter and the Cedarville Censors. By Brian Meadors. McFarland, 2019. In Harry Potter and the Cedarville Censors, attorney Brian Meadors has composed a memoir about bringing a civil suit against the Cedarville School District when its board required the school library to take J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books out of general circulation. Meadors contextualizes his experience in Arkansas by tracing the court cases that have impacted upon students' constitutional rights within public schools. Some of the situations he explores include the Jehovah's Witnesses' court battles not to salute the American flag at school and students' First Amendment right to publish an underground newspaper. Throughout these reaccountings, he cites other censorship cases involving Daddy's Roommate, Heather Has Two Mommies, and A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich. Meadors also provides details of a case in which the school board removed books from the school library in Levittown, Long Island. He describes how the situation pits two values against each other just as occurs in the Cedarville case: the students' First Amendment right "to freely read and receive material" and "the right of the school boards to set their own curriculum molded in the community's values and mores" (49). Meadors further chronicles his own encounters with censorship. As a teen, he graduated from a high school in which the Confederate flag was a part of the school's mascot, then became an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, which had developed a policy banning the flag's presence. Meadors asserts his conviction that "the power to censor is a bad power indeed—it will be used to enforce the prevailing notions, whatever they may be, or the people who happen to hold that censoring power" (39). This frames his motives for pursuing the Cedarville suit. At times Meadors speaks of the participants' intentions and thoughts. In the chapter notes, he describes obtaining these insights through interviews. With touches of humor and characterization, he represents perspectives from both sides of the suit, including the voice of Angie Haney, who filed the complaint that initiated [End Page 96] the Cedarville school library committee's review of the Harry Potter novels. Meadors also features the experiences of Estella Roberts, the school librarian who fought to retain the books in circulation and who assembled a committee to evaluate Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Although Roberts's committee voted to keep Rowling's novels in circulation, the school board overturned this decision and required the books to be shelved separately and that parents provide written permission for students to check them out. This sparked dissent and led Meadors to his clients Bill Counts and his daughter, Dakota, a fourth-grade Cedarville Elementary student who served on the library committee. Throughout his memoir, Meadors provides advice about filing and arguing a civil suit. For readers less familiar with the American civil court system, he presents clear definitions of concepts and gives suggestions for finding a client with standing or a personal stake in the case. He also provides advice on deposing experts and people involved in the case as well as on assembling a strong legal argument. Meadors directly quotes from his depositions about why members of the school board wanted to restrict access and why Dakota Counts wanted to ensure access to Rowling's series. Based on previous censorship court cases, Meadors focused his arguments to demonstrate that the Harry Potter books were not obscene, libelous, or vulgar; did not promote illegal activity; and did not cause a disruption within the school. He also dis cusses how he received support from the American Library Association through "amici curiae" or "friends of the court" briefs that included a letter from author Judy Blume. To conclude both his argument and his memoir, Meadors asserts the special role of school libraries, noting that while the school board may control the curriculum, "their power wanes in the school library," a place for students to explore "different viewpoints and different messages" (160). Although I am not inclined to assign passages from Harry Potter and the Cedarville Censors as...

Information Sources Used By Charterers to Select Shipowners

This study aims to identify the information search behaviour of charterers in selecting shipowners within a business-to-business framework. It focuses on charterers' information sources and how different factors (individual, organisational, and purchase-related) affect the information search since this construct is a major component of comprehensive theories of organisational buying behaviour. Understanding the buying behaviour of charterers also helps marketers to increase customer satisfaction. The analysis is based on questionnaire responses from 141 firms that have recently chartered vessels. From a principal components analysis, the study identified eight sets of information sources, of which impersonal, e-mails and reference-based information were the most important. The results show that the business-to-business information sources used by ship charterers vary significantly according to organisation size, centralisation, type of purchase, purchase complexity and experience. Further analyses revealed a significant relationship between these factors and business-to-business information sources, specifically between the importance of the purchase, perceived risk, formalisation, standardisation, personal stake, specialisation, and use of information resources. Finally, the study revealed a significant relationship between business-to-business information sources and customer satisfaction.

Comparing Outrage Effect on the Risk Perception of Climate Change versus Fine Dust

ABSTRACT Public evaluation of risk is influenced by the emotive response to perceived risk characteristics, namely outrage factors. We evaluated which outrage factors contribute to the public perception of two different environmental risks, climate change and fine dust. In particular, the outrage factors of controllability, familiarity, and delayed effect were assessed to determine if they are more salient and influential for climate change than fine dust. A nationwide online survey (N = 1,000) was conducted to measure nine outrage factors and risk perception for both risks in a South Korean population. Although both environmental risks were associated with a similar level of risk perception, catastrophic potential and personal stake were the highest scoring outrage factors for climate change and fine dust, respectively, and were also the strongest influence for the level of each risk perception. Familiarity was more salient for climate change than fine dust, and was influential only for climate change. Delayed effect was more salient for climate change, but was not influential for the perception of both risks. Controllability was more salient for fine dust but had no significant influence on both risk perceptions. Catastrophic potential, dread, personal stake, and trust were common influential outrage factors for both risks. We discuss the significance of an individualistic approach to evaluating outrage effects. In addition, the practical implications of comparing salient and influential outrage factors for both risks were addressed in terms of risk communication.

Policy and Ethical Considerations for Widespread Utilization of Generic Orthopedic Implants.

In 2015, the United States spent $3.2 trillion on healthcare, representing 18% of the nation’s gross domestic product [1]. As prices continue to climb, physicians, healthcare policymakers, and industry leaders alike have sought varied means to lower costs while maintaining the quality of care. Coverage expansion, shifts toward bundled care payments, and the implementation of Medicare Payment Reform (Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015 [MACRA]) are indicative of shifting dynamics in the American healthcare system prioritizing outcomes, value, and cost-containment over the fee-for-service model [2], [3]. Orthopedic implant expenditures are considerable in the overall cost of care for surgical patients. The cost of total joint arthroplasty implants between 1996 and 2006 increased an estimated 130%. Implant and medical device costs comprise up to 60% of hospital reimbursements for primary procedures [4]. Most implants are proprietary in nature and vary substantially in their price and features depending on the industry manufacturer [5], [6], [7]. Control of implant costs is thus a necessary focus for cost containment in orthopedic surgery. To that end, as patents on many brand name implants begin to expire, “generic” implants present a unique opportunity to improve the value of orthopedic care. Although generic drugs have been used for decades in the pharmaceutical industry, the use of generic implants has only recently been considered in the field of orthopedic surgery [8], [9], [10]. In the pharmaceutical sector, an estimated $33 billion has been saved by Medicare in the United States through utilization of generic medications [11]. There could be potential for an analogous substantial reduction in healthcare expenditures via the use of generic orthopedic implants. There is some literature describing the favorable economic possibilities for use of generic orthopedic implants [9], [10], [12]. However, the ethical issues, policy implications, and potential unanticipated consequences of such a paradigm shift have not been investigated. This article discusses the pros and cons of generic implant usage from economic, clinical, and ethical perspectives.

People Can Accurately (But Not Adaptively) Judge Strangers’ Antigay Prejudice from Faces

The ecological theory of social perception suggests that people’s first impressions should be especially accurate for judgments relevant to their goals. Here, we tested whether people could accurately judge others’ levels of antigay prejudice and whether gay men’s accuracy would exceed straight men’s accuracy in making these judgments. We found that people judged men’s (but not women’s) levels of antigay prejudice accurately from photos of their faces and that impressions of facial power supported their judgments. Gay men and straight men did not significantly differ in their sensitivity to antigay prejudice, however. People may therefore judge others’ levels of prejudice accurately regardless of their personal stake in its consequences.

Professional Societies Should Abstain From Authorship of Guidelines and Disease Definition Statements.

Professional Societies Should Abstain From Authorship of Guidelines and Disease Definition Statements.

Lost Letters: Using the Lost-letter Technique to Teach Social Research Methods

Over 50 years ago, Stanley Milgram and colleagues published a short article detailing an unobtrusive experimental design they called the lost-letter technique. The technique involves placing stamped, unmailed letters in a community and using the relative rate of return to infer local attitudes toward political issues and social groups. Furthermore, the technique is simple and inexpensive enough to replicate in an introductory-level social science course as a means to familiarize students with social research methodology. This activity utilizes active learning with student-centered pedagogy, and this paper details the procedure, best practices, and student feedback. Students enjoy having a personal stake in the project and find they better understand social research through this active learning project. Instructors are encouraged to consider adopting the technique in their courses.

Estonia Goes Digital

Estonia Goes Digital

Hedge Fund Liquidity Management

We find that asset illiquidity in hedge funds is typically lower than combined liabilities and equity illiquidity, i.e., hedge funds tend to exhibit negative liquidity mismatch. Using hedge fund regulatory filings of Form PF over 2013-2015, we find that negative liquidity mismatches are more pronounced among larger funds, funds with lower leverage, funds in which managers have a greater personal stake, and when market volatility is lower. We also find support for existing theories of liquidity management: Funds holding more illiquid assets are associated with longer committed periods of investor financing, and the absence of long-term commitments from investors and lenders predicts greater cash holdings and unused borrowing capacity, respectively. Finally, quarterly changes in cash holdings and unused borrowing are negatively related to current and future investor flows and fund returns, suggesting that managers increase liquidity buffers in response to investor outflows, negative performance and ahead of financial distress. Our findings of a negative relation between cash buffer changes and outflows contrast sharply with recent mutual funds studies. We find that hedge funds’ right to enact so-called “discretionary” liquidity restrictions plays an important role in explaining this difference.

Why do CEOs agree to the discipline of dividends?

This study investigates dividend initiation as the product of the imbalance of power between shareholders and management in U.S. firms from 2003 to 2012. We find that dividend initiation is associated with a stronger governance structure (strong shareholders' rights and board independence), in accordance with the outcome model. We do not identify a single motivation for dividend initiation. Dividend-initiating firms tend to rely on various forms of governance balanced by the interests and ownership of CEOs and directors. Firms with institutional owners are more likely to initiate dividends concurrent with the turnover of the CEO. Dual CEOs initiate dividends when they own more shares, and boards of directors initiate dividends with a higher personal ownership stake when shareholders' rights are weak. We also find that when initiation is due to stronger governance, it is significantly related to the firm's investment opportunities, while for weak governance firms, that relationship is not observed. We interpret this as evidence that, under weaker governance, the decision to initiate dividends is motivated by agency conflicts rather than investment or capital structure considerations.

The Emergence of the Fashion Industry and the Development of the Consumer Market in England during the Mid Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

The Emergence of the Fashion Industry and the Development of the Consumer Market in England during the Mid Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries Sarah Spoljaric F ashion has always been imbedded in society. As long as people have been wearing clothes there has been a minor sense of competition between one another. As technology expanded people began to be able to strengthen the competition and ability to wear new clothing. Mass colonization created a mechanism for the fashion industry to be successful and had the ability to sustain any social changes within England, which developed from stylistic competition and power assertion. Fashion developed from an elite pastime to a way of life for everyone. Due to British colonialism and sustained class power struggles, the beginning of the fashion industry is deeply tied to society today. The history of the fashion industry had influenced both the economy and society. Socially, due to the artistic nature of fashion, individually developed personal style, which influenced others to purchase similar goods, like bonnets. The economic aspects derived from the factories, which created jobs and the fashion products then flooded the markets. The stylistic tie gave people personal stake in the economic outcome, leading the two factors to work hand in hand to create a successful industry, which still dominates the world’s economy today. Fashion and style have always revolved around societies, however it never became an industry until the mid-eighteenth century. This was due to a variety of factors including urbanization, technology, trade roots, colonization, and industrialization. As opposed to previous generations in England which revolved around individual shops and specializations such as tailors or cobblers, the newly emerged workshops opened producing multiples of the same items. Due to mass-production, prices were lowered which allowed individuals to purchase even more products than they would have previously. There were a variety of factors, which allowed it to succeed especially the exploitation of the lower and working classes and the British colonization. Individuals put personal stake in what they wore and status was placed onto their wardrobe. While economically companies used this to their advantage to sell their newly imported goods to British consumers. British colonialism created a market, which fed off limited goods. Factories opened in larger cities and lower classes flocked to work in them in hopes of helping their economic situation. The upper classes used this to their advantage to exploit the workers in favor of keeping a fashionable edge with other people in their classes. Through a breakdown of the different themes revolving around the social and economic aspects of the fashion industry in England it will create an intertwining picture of how it could be sustained. Beginning with the class divisions in England then transitioning into the British colonialism and how through trade and the exploitation of countries and classes; they were able to gain access to the raw materials, which created luxury goods. Then introducing the goods into the market led to competition within the classes. Eventually leading into how the economic success allowed for people to use excess income to advance their own style and competition with others. Before the eighteenth century fashion tended to be reserved for the upper classes and royalty, this left the lower classes to use clothing for function rather than style. Not because of lack of fashionable knowledge but economic barriers. English history was filled with the class system. With royalty at the highest position followed by the upper class trickling down to the lower classes. The mass separation between the lower and upper classes began to dissolve with British expansion and colonization. A mercantile class began to emerge which in turn developed

Propaganda and Artificial Glory

This project involves the analysis of both primary and secondary sources to investigate what caused men from three towns in Indiana to volunteer to fight in the Spanish-American War, a conflict that they had no personal reason to join. The predominantly-used primary sources were newspapers from the three towns in Indiana and speeches by politicians. These three towns were selected after careful analysis of demographic information including population and number of volunteers in the Spanish-American War from every major city in the state. To further expand on these ideas, political leanings and occupations were taken into account. Upon completing this study, it was discovered that both the rhetoric of pro-imperial politicians, the propaganda that filled the newspapers of the time, and the creation of the concept of glory and the valor that could be won through combat had an effect on the men’s decision to register for a conflict in which the soldiers had no personal stake.

Empowering Communities: Ella Baker’s Decentralized Leadership Style and Conversational Eloquence

ABSTRACTThis article examines Ella Baker’s distinctive contributions to what she called the fight for full freedom. In particular, this article analyzes Baker’s 1969 speech, “The Black Woman in the Civil Rights Struggle.” This article contends that Baker’s rhetorical efforts allowed her to revitalize and rethink the Civil Rights Movement by positioning her audience as its leaders. By empowering her audience to be leaders and to take a personal stake in the fight for freedom, Baker promoted the continuation of the Civil Rights Movement by emphasizing the importance of individual action and the commitment to a larger communal struggle. This article enriches scholarship about the Civil Rights Movement, by highlighting how Civil Rights Movement rhetors used a wide array of appeals.

Standing in Privacy Lawsuits: Is the Tide Turning in Favor of Consumers?

Standing has emerged as one of the most significant procedural obstacles to data privacy plaintiffs, who are faced with unique problems created by the rapid advancements in information systems that are able to collect and share personal data of Internet users. A particularly concerning scenario is the largely unregulated aggregation and sale of consumer data by third parties, commonly known as data brokers, who are the modern equivalent of the Yellow Book, except at the scale of the Internet. Consumers are at the risk of significant privacy harm caused by any misuse or disclosure of their personal information by data brokers, and there is very limited, if any, historical precedent for their ability to challenge and get relief for the resulting injuries. The standing to sue, therefore, is part of an important framework to enable individuals allegedly harmed by data brokers to protect their own right of privacy.Courts are split regarding what injury plaintiffs must have incurred to have standing to assert online privacy related claims. A related circuit split has developed regarding whether a plaintiff must show injury sufficient to meet Article III requirements even where Congress by statute has expressly provided a private cause of action. The Supreme Court is considering this issue in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins in its current term, which is the case this comment focuses on.The comment first analyzes both these circuit splits and then discusses the standing claim in Spokeo, Inc. In reviewing the legal precedent and the policy concerns related to this issue, it argues that the Court should construe statutory violation as an alternate measure rather than a substitute for injury-in-fact, so that a statutory violation, without more, should not be enough for standing. It then concludes that the Court should grant standing where a plaintiff, as a result of being deprived of a legally-protected right, suffers an injury that is sufficiently individualized and concrete to accord him a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy. This approach allows the Court to strike the right balance between frivolous claims and valid consumer protection policy concerns in the contemporary context of online privacy suits.

Parler plusieurs langues: le monde des bilingues par François Grosjean

sujet de l’écrit sms (abréviation systématique, tendance à l’informel, ‘destruction’ du langage ou de la syntaxe) sont-elles vérifiées par l’exploration d’une large quantité de données sms?” (10), ouvrent la réflexion sur les grandes interrogations liées à la communication par ordinateur dans le cadre d’un cours de français moderne ou de sociolinguistique. Le sommaire récapitulatif ouvrant les douze chapitres, initialement plaisant, devient répétitif à l’intérieur des chapitres, et plusieurs figures, trop petites, sont pratiquement illisibles. On apprécie cependant les phrases en gras soulignant les aspects-clés de l’analyse. Au total Cougnon propose une revue efficace de la Cémo et des sms, reposant sur une méthodologie rigoureuse et objectivement présentée, peut- être excessivement au regard des chapitres consacrés aux résultats. Parmi ceux-ci, on peut noter la prépondérance des verbes sur les substantifs (à l’inverse du corpus du français parlé de Rivenc 1971); des interrogatives totales informelles (par exemple,‘ça roule?’); et l’indépendance de l’emploi des néologismes par rapport au chat, courrier électronique et forum. La communication interpersonnelle moderne permet ainsi une considération très à-propos des variétés francophones. Wake Forest University (NC) Stéphanie Pellet Grosjean, François. Parler plusieurs langues: le monde des bilingues. Paris: Albin Michel, 2015. ISBN 978-2-226-31260-0. Pp. 229. 19 a. The phrase parler bilingue occurs frequently in Grosjean’s volume: it signifies the dynamic and creative process of generating a novel linguistic variety based on the interaction of two languages or dialects. This perspective on the bilingual individual may be startling. For many readers, bilingualism implicates the complete mastery of two codes. There is no room for borrowings or code-switching.“Foreign” accents are to be effaced, and the goal is “passing.” In this reading, bilingualism is a performative act, and Grosjean rejects any such monolingual-bilingual dichotomy. Favoring process over product, we are, just as his young son, en devenir bilingues. Bilingualism, for Grosjean, is functional and contextual: a speaker may be bilingual (according to the classical definition referenced above) in certain socio-linguistic contexts, yet virtually monolingual, or better, in the process of becoming bilingual in others. Bilingualism may likewise be part of a biographical récit: so-called mastery of a language can vary according to age and circumstance.Grosjean illustrates this variation through a graphical rendering that highlights/contrasts knowledge versus use of several linguistic varieties. Indeed, biography and self-discovery are two important threads that are woven into this text. Grosjean reflects on his own bilingualism and the creation of a bilingual family as he elaborates the shifting theoretical and pedagogical approaches to this phenomenon. During the “black period,” from 1920–1960, the use of two languages was considered debilitating to mastery of the ambient language. Many immigrants to 286 FRENCH REVIEW 89.4 Reviews 287 the United States used a stigmatized language that signified the outsider, the unpatriotic , the non-participant in the American search for prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, these attitudes began to change. Grosjean cites studies whose results counter those of the previous decades. Bilinguals indeed acquire cognitive skills that enhance their linguistic ability, and there is no evidence that bilingualism has a negative effect on production in either language. Unfortunately, the prejudicial view that the use of some languages and their inevitable cultural associations destabilize the social structure is still in place, for example,Arabic in much of Western Europe. Thus, bilingualism has a social and economic aspect. There are élite bilinguals (English/French) and disadvantaged ones. Happily, many of the latter have found their voice, countering the notion of a monolithic nationalism. Grosjean’s notions of bilingualism are nonprescriptive and inclusive. Individuals who question their bilingualism because they do not “speak like diplomats” astound him: indeed, bilinguals who show linguistic mastery in virtually every domain may make errors, exhibit poor performance due to physical or emotional state, or display lexical gaps. Based on numerous historical and contemporary studies, Grosjean nonetheless avoids jargon and needless abstraction. His style is clear and immensely engaging. His personal stake in...