Throughout the 1990s Croatia was ruled by a string of conservative HDZ-led governments. The death of Franjo Tuđman in December 1999 coincided with a popular swing to the left. Since then the left-of-centre SDP have enjoyed two spells in government, although the HDZ has proved consistently successful over the longer term, building networks of control and influence that have proved difficult to dislodge.

Throughout the 2000s the emphasis in foreign policy was on Croatia’s international integration, with the country joining NATO in 2009 and the EU in 2013.

Bust & boom

The financial crisis of 2008 led to a period of economic gloom from which parts of the country have still not recovered. A combination of bad employment prospects and conservative social attitudes have encouraged many young and talented Croats to emigrate.

The recovery of the Croatian tourist industry, which picked up slowly after 2000 and positively exploded after 2010, has at least provided the country with one success story, and helped it construct a new, seductive international image. Tourism has served as a spur to contemporary architecture, with visionary architects like Nikola Bašić remodelling Zadar with his installations Sea Organ and Greeting to the Sun.

These factors, together with the world-cup success of the Croatian national football team in 1998 (3rd) and 2018 (2nd), have given the country a degree of soft power far in excess of any other former Yugoslav republic.