Mate Nikola Tokic is assistant professor of modern European and East European history at The American University in Cairo. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (2007), MA from the London School of Economics (1996) and BA from Goucher College (1995). Before coming to the AUC, Tokic was a postdoctoral fellow in the Freie Universität Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies and a Jean Monnet Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) in Florence, Italy. At the RSCAS, Dr. Tokic was a member of the European Forum that addressed the topic “Political Violence and Terrorism: Patterns of Radicalization in Political Activism.” Professor Tokic’s current research is on migration and transnational political violence in post-war Europe. Specifically, his work explores the radicalization of certain segments of the émigré Croat population in the three decades following World War II and the processes that led them to adopt terrorism as an acceptable form of political expression.

His research examines how both patterns of migration and changes in the realities of the Cold War political landscape directly shaped the strategies of Croatian separatist groups outside of Yugoslavia. Although relatively unknown, Croatian separatists were globally among the most active terrorists of the 1960s and 70s. More broadly, Professor Tokic’s academic interests centre on the relationship among history, memory and nation in modern Europe, particularly under State Socialism.

Research interests: nation and nationalities in Yugoslavia, migration politics, radicalization, political violence, and social memory