Sidney Tarrow, the Maxwell M. Upson Professor Emeritus of Government at Cornell, has received a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences of $32,400 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He will use the grant to explore when and how rights are protected or abused under conditions of modern warfare.

According to Tarrow, controversy exists over whether the building of modern states, nourished by war, helped to produce modern rights or whether modern warfare produces conditions that militate against civil rights and civil liberties.

"I will make the argument that only when 'contentious political actors' are prepared to defend or advance rights in an atmosphere of uncertainty and securitization are rights protected," wrote Tarrow in his proposal to Mellon.

Tarrow will concentrate his study on four pivotal historical moments in state-building or reformation: the French Revolution, the American Civil War and Reconstruction, the Kemalist Republic and the establishment of the State of Israel. The funding from the Mellon Foundation will enable Tarrow to do on-site research in Paris, Istanbul and possibly the Middle East.

Tarrow has written or edited more than a dozen books. He co-founded Cornell's Western Societies Program with Mario Einaudi, which eventually became the Institute for European Studies. Tarrow's many honors include the American Sociological Association's prize for the best book on collective behavior and social movements for "Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965-1975," and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is co-teaching a course on law and society for the Cornell Law School this fall.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.