Mate Nikola Tokic

Of the myriad terrorist organizations that emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s, those supporting the destruction of socialist Yugoslavia and the establishment of an independent Croatia were among the most active. My research focuses on the social and political context behind the radicalization of certain segments of the Croatian émigré population during the 1960s and 1970s and the processes which led them to embrace of terrorism as an acceptable form of political expression. At its core, my research examines the intersection of various factors which both limited and delimited the strategic thinking of Croatian separatists in the diaspora. Essentially, my work traces the trajectory of the émigré Croat separatist movement to the point in which at least some came to believe that only "self-initiated action"—i.e. political violence and terrorism—could bring about the establishment of an independent Croatian state.