Democracy 2024

2024 was a year of elections: more than half the world’s adults could vote. To mark this, the FT embarked on an ambitious project featuring 4 exclusive films, a social media campaign, live events and a published book.

We commissioned female writers from around the world – including Margaret Atwood from Canada, Lola Shoneyin from Nigeria, Elif Shafak from Turkey and Aditi Mittal from India – to explore what democracy means to them. We decided to commission women because research shows that, when democracy is threatened, women suffer disproportionately. Women also remain underrepresented across democratic institutions.

The decision to use comedy, poetry, dance and music to express political ideas was unusual for the FT. And the results proved that it's possible to connect emotionally as well as to inform and shed new light.

The result was a forum for audiences in different countries to see their national debates as part of an international trend. The film series reached 1.1 billion viewers and thousands more either attended the live events around the world or bought the book- active and committed engagement.