Research Log #3

Research Log #3

Chandler, David. "Race, Culture and Civil Society: Peacebuilding Discourse and the Understanding of Difference." Security Dialogue 41.4 (2010): 370-90. Sage Journals Online. Aug. 2010. Web. 1 Apr. 2011. <http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/41/4/369.full.pdf+html>.

            The main focus on this article is to help us understand how civil society is framed and how in nature, it changes consistently.  The author also is giving examples on how peace building and civil society are almost based of the same aspects. Our structure of civil society and peace building has been made up on our different races, cultures, and how we tie them all together to build a stable civil society.  We all have an understanding on how we should act, and we have a nature of knowing what the problem is and how we must go about it to solve it. The author tries to help us understand the way our society is framed and that there are some that really stand out. We frame civil society around our government and the political side of our society. Without the Politian’s to shape our government and tell us what to do and what we should do, we would be a wreck. We also have rights and interests that our Politian’s must see and work to make everyone happy. This quote I believe helps me understand what civil society truly is, “Civil society will only have been achieved when this subject makes the ‘right’ or ‘civil’ choices, revealing a rationality and maturity with regard to collective interests.” Pg 379.  With this said, we will have a society that is able to live around each other, make our own good choices, and still have great outcomes. Another quote said, “The focus upon civil society maintains the role of race or culture in rationalizing difference and inequality.” Pg. 387. I believe that with the way our society is set up, that this quote would make sense and we can all live in a world where we co-exist.

            I found this article to be very interesting on revealing how we frame a civil society. I also liked how it introduced its own research on peace building and how it ties into civil societies. The article also said that they were not doing research on people, but more with people. I thought this was interesting because we always tend to do research projects on things, instead of dealing with the actual project. Another idea that stood out to me was how there are different sections in peace building including race, culture and a civil society and how they all tie in with each other. Its almost like without all three, we wouldn’t have a well understanding of each other and wouldn’t know how to live in the same society.

            I thought this journal would show me a new aspect or idea of how you can look at civil society. I never really thought of a civil society to be apart of race and culture, however we deal with those topics almost everyday. I would enjoy learning more about how politicians view civil society and how can they come up with new ways to make it possible to have no conflict and to provide rights and interests for everyone. Researching this, I believe I will go and look for more politicians’ speeches or even some of their books to see if and how they talk about a civil society.