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?The advantages of decentralization are realizable, however, only if there are good reasons for the players to believe that others will generally abide by the terms of the federation. That is, all must believe?that the center will not try to usurp power from the regions.? - Bednar, Eskridge, and Ferejohn (2001) As Bednar et al. assert in the quote above, federalism only works if there is trust among the players within the decentralized political structure. In particular, the political actors at the sub-national level must feel confident that the actors at the national level will not ?usurp (their) power? (223). Unfortunately trust is not a feeling currently being held by the sub-national actors in the higher education systems of both the United States and Europe. The American and European academic communities are feeling threatened by the recent policy proposals made by their national governments. These similar concerns voiced by the American and European higher education communities raise the question ? will any of the higher education systems be able to withstand this threat to their autonomy by their national government? I will attempt to answer this crucial question by using Jenna Bednar, William Eskridge, and John Ferejohn?s ?a political theory of federalism? (it will be referred to as the Bednar theory for the rest of the paper), which declares that federalism can only succeed if there are ?structural restraints? that force the national and sub-national units to respect each other?s authority (226). I will apply the theory to five higher education systems (France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, and the United States) and examine each one to see if it has the necessary ?structural restraints? to withstand the threats from the national government as prescribed by Bednar et al. My hypothesis is that the Bednar theory will prove accurate and only those higher education systems with strong structural restraints will have the capacity to protect their independence. To test my hypothesis, the paper will be divided into five main sections. The first section will be a brief explanation of the debate between President Bush and the American academic community, highlighting the positions of both sides. The second section will be a description of the Bologna Declaration, the problems that the Education Ministers believe it will address, and the response to the Declaration by the European University community. The third part of the paper will be a summary of the Bednar theory and an explanation on how it will be applied in this paper. The fourth section will be an examination of the six case studies. Particular attention will be on the relationship between the universities and their national government, and specifically how financial assistance is allocated to the institutions. The last section will look at the preliminary results of the Bologna Declaration and the Bush proposal. A brief overview at how successful (or unsuccessful in some cases) the national government has been in implementing its policies, and observing if my hypothesis has been proven accurate at this early stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an often-expressed opinion that as more immigrants arrive in traditional immigration countries such as the U.S., their assimilation rates are slowing, particularly as revealed in their fluency in the language of their host country and in the frequency of use of their native tongue. This opinion often serves to support major educational and language policies that have broad implications for all immigrants. Using data from the 1989 German SOEP panel and the 1989/90 combined PSID/Latino National Political Survey, this paper will compare the self-report data on language use of Turkish 17-65 year-old immigrants in Germany and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. distinguished by generational status measured by birthplace/length of residence as well as age at and period of immigration. Findings indicate similarities in language acquisition of more recent immigrants to the U.S. and Germany despite differences in the background of immigrants, the circumstances of their migration and their host societies policies and reception environment. An exception are the pre-1974 "guestworker" immigrants and the 1.5 generation offspring. Their language proficiency lags behind because they arrived at a time and in a situation where neither the host society nor the immigrants considered long-term immigration as a reality. Other, serious obstacles for host language acquisition may exist in an immigrant situation with large protective enclaves/niches or strong tendencies toward ethnoracial segregation/separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]