Photograph by Michael H. Nelson, published on New Mandala, 23 December 2007

Real-time coverage of election results is not standard academic work. But here at New Mandala we enjoy the challenge. Throughout the night we will be pushing the envelope with respect to standard scholarly practice. We hope our efforts add value to the wider, global push to understand Thailand’s 2011 vote.

For those of you with some time on your hands before the polls close in a couple of hours time, I recommend long-time New Mandala guest contributor Dr Michael H. Nelson’s thorough analysis of the 2007 Thai election. Published just this past Friday by the European-Asian Journal of Law and Governance the full text of the article is available here.

Nelson concludes by suggesting that “it is an open question whether and to what degree fresh elections will be democratically meaningful”.