What is governing Portuguese Migration?

Abstract: The migration policy of the European Union is debated. Countries inside and outside of the Union are affected by what is said and decided, and what is not. I decided to choose Portugal, a country with historic ties to colonialism, and investigate its relation to the Union and its policies. To be able to understand the power-relations and the tacit understandings that is imbedded in policy-making, I used Foucault’s governmentality theory. It high-lighted some of the Union’s rationalities; I was able to identify assumptions based on the division between “good and bad migration” according to economic factors, as well as a “there’s a European citizenship”, which implies a shared identity, and also that “migrants can be managed – in their home countries.”. I then tried to identify the rationalities in Portugal’s foreign policies, which led me to the conclusion that Portugal’s past as a colonial power is still a part of the country’s identity. Portugal and the European Union do share many assumptions on how to handle migration but Portugal does not seem to have the same need to distinguish between the external and the internal. However, as it adjusts to the EU’s policies, the country appears to adopt its rationalities.