Portugal has a longstanding tradition of emigration with a particularly powerful demographic, economic and cultural impact. In the Portuguese case, the main pattern is the transition from an emigration policy to a diaspora policy, focusing on the establishment of political, cultural and socio-economic links with its citizens living abroad. This transition began at the start of the 1980s and was the result of the recently-installed democratic regime’s new understanding of the emigration process, its meanings and impacts. Since then, the trend has been non-linear, with policies giving greater or lesser importance to diaspora building and diaspora engagement goals depending on the short-term national and international contexts. This chapter describes the evolution of emigration and diaspora policies in Portugal in the past six decades.

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