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Evaluating Tuđman’s Foreign Policy - (Un)successful Protection of National Interest ; From Defender to Despot

The majority of Croatian foreign policy creators and certain scholars evaluate Croatian foreign policy as very successful, especially when compared to domestic policy. Furthermore, the first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman – the main creator of Croatian foreign policy during the 1991-2000 period – is often invoked as a supreme defender of Croatian national interests. This article challenges such positions by setting up a normative framework, which states that Croatian national interest was (is) to become a functional Europeanized parliamentary democracy, based on values, norms and principles formulated in acquis communautaire. Through simplified normativism, the article evaluates four main points: “respect for sovereignty”, “peace”, “market economy” and “rule of law” in which the Croatian foreign policy, whose main creator was Franjo Tuđman, largely contributed to the alienation of Croatia from its vital national interest. The final part of the article evaluates Tuđman’s thought that focuses mainly on the position of small peoples within multinational entities, democracy, Croatia and the EU etc. One of the main reasons of a failed democratic transition is found in Tuđman’s perception that Croatia became a democratic state just by formally adopting a democratic Constitution.

Franjo Tuđman; national interests; Croatian foreign policy; Europeanization; (de)Tuđmanization

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