In December 1887, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi introduced unified Italy's first legislation on emigration with the following words:

Crispi was referring to what had become one of the central questions for policymakers after Italian unification: how to address the fact that millions of hard-working and newly nationalized Italians were leaving Italy, more and more often permanently, in search of better fortune in Europe and, in ever-increasing numbers, across the Atlantic (Fiore 71–82). In this period, colonies were considered both the “spontaneous” settlements of emigrants abroad and the planned settlements in East Africa for which, as early as 1887, Italians had been sent to fight in deadly battles.

In describing the state's role in the regulation of emigration, Crispi stages a convergence between two modes of government. In the first of these two modes, government is a disciplinary agent, whose surveying (and “loving”) eye is armed with knowledge and aimed at individual emigrant bodies. In the second, the aim of government shifts to include individuals as elements of a national population, whose borders and numbers must expand, enveloping new territories and reproducing itself, in order to survive. This second mode of government, known as biopolitics, was, in 1887, yet to be named as such, though European nation-states had long been operating under similar imperatives.