The occasion is the publication of “Diplomacija iza kulisa – komparativna analiza jedne profesije” (Diplomacy Behind the Scenes: A Comparative Analysis of a Profession; Fraktura, 2026) by Damir Grubiša, political scientist and former Croatian Ambassador to Italy. The book looks at diplomacy from both sides of the curtain: the public stage of protocol and ceremony, and the work that largely takes place out of the spotlight. Grubiša writes about diplomatic immunity and its abuses, the overlap between diplomacy and espionage, secret negotiations, and the dinner table and wine as tools of the trade. He compares the diplomatic services of Italy, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries, and devotes separate chapters to the building of Croatian diplomacy from 1990 to the present and to the legacy of Yugoslav diplomacy.
Reviewers point out that the book brings together two things rarely found in one place in Croatian literature: scholarly analysis and a participant’s first-hand experience, written with wit and irony. Its central argument is a serious one. For all its weaknesses, diplomacy as the art of negotiation and compromise remains a civilisational value, and perhaps the only effective way to bring conflicts down to a point from which talks can begin.
The discussion takes that argument as its starting point. What does diplomatic work look like in a time of wars, global insecurity and ever more frequent breaches of the rules it rests on, the Vienna Convention included? How much room is left for professional diplomacy when decisions are taken at the highest political level and confidentiality can vanish with a single leak? What can a small state’s diplomacy achieve in such a world, and has the Croatian diplomatic service, three and a half decades after it was created, become sufficiently professional and European?