The hypothesis presented in the introduction was that discourse analysis of four concepts in Britain and France - nation/state, Europe, security and the nature of international relations - is able to explicate British and French policies towards Europe in the 1 980s. Chapter I gave an account of the theo­ retical framework for discourse analysis and its usage in foreign policy. The analysis of the four concepts for the two countries was presented in chapters 2 and 3. An attempt was made in chapter 4 to explicate the European poli­ cies of Britain and France in the 1 980s by reference to the discourses on the four concepts. The findings were summarised in the final section of chapter 4. I found that the general lines of the two countries' European policies lay within, and were shaped by, the framework provided by the discourses on the four concepts.