The paper draws on research findings on the influence of discourse on policy making to explore the significance of 'Europe' as an imagined community in the politics of a peripheral state (Scotland). The focus of the research is on policy discourse and its capacity to change or make meaning, in particular in relation to the redefinition of nationalism as an 'imagined community' (Anderson 2006, Gellner 2006) that exploits global and European resources beyond the nation state. Through the analysis of the education policy discourse of the (minority) Nationalist government in Scotland, and especially its 'referencing outward' to Europe (Arnott 2005, 2007) and the project of Europeanisation in education (Grek et al 2009), we seek to illustrate the interplay of transnational and 'local' discourses and their effects in so-called peripheral contexts (Ozga 2005). These findings challenge the prevailing view of Europeanisation or globalisation as entering 'local' policy spaces and transforming them (Ozga and Lingard 2007). Rather, European policy disourses are used as a resource to enable the repositioning of a peripheral nation, and to connect it to other, similar small states like Denmark, Norway and Finland (OECD 2007). This discursive shift distances policy making in Scotland from that of England, and we draw on this example to consider the extent to which and in what circumstances 'travelling' policy can be connected discursively to 'embedded' practices and relations (Ozga 2005) in ways that complicate and challenge some current assumptions about the emergence of a global policy field in education.

The project uses the theory and practice of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1992,1995) to interrogate policy texts and interview data from politicians in the Scottish government and also from policy makers within the European commission.

The conclusions include the following: (a) a strong endorsement of the importance and capacity of discourse to create material effects, including repositioning of relations of influence and power and (b) illustration of the use of the idea of 'Europe' as an imaginary by peripheral nations rather than simply as a conforming, homogenising process.