I was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), in 1976. In 2020 I joined the politics department at the University of Edinburgh. How I got from there to here explains why I do what I do. I left home mid-conflict and settled in Canada two years prior to the 2nd Quebec referendum. Both experiences led me to do a PhD, mostly so I could try to figure out the alchemy of the modern state. I would land in Scotland around the time the British commentariat settled on the idea that the breakup of the UK is only a matter of when.

The drawbacks of moving around have been offset by some useful side effects. One is the immunity to the allure of received stories while understanding why they are so alluring. Another is the status of what the German conceptual historian called a vanquished person - one who retains the memory of what did not happen, but could have. The result is a tendency to counterfactualize at all times. Both quirks have shaped my research.