APPRAISAL ANALYSIS OF PAKISTANI POLITICAL MANIFESTOS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PML-N, PTI, AND PPP 2024 ELECTION MANIFESTOS

Political manifestos play a key role in democratic communication, helping political parties to build their party identities, assess the performance of the government and negotiate electoral pledges with citizens. This study quantitatively evaluates the policies and priorities of Pakistan's three leading political parties (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)) in their election manifestos for the general elections of 8th February, 2024. Grounded in Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal Theory, encompassing Attitude (Affect, Judgement, Appreciation), Engagement (Monogloss and Heterogloss) and Graduation (Force and Focus) – the study takes a mixed method approach of quantitative frequency analysis and qualitative discourse analysis, investigating evaluative language, as well as the ideological positioning and persuasive strategies found in the selected manifesto texts. The findings show that PML-N uses a technocratic-developmental discourse that is based on quantified Appreciation and Monoglossic authority, PTI foregrounds Affect and Judgement in the Islamic welfare-state discourse and PPP constructs a social democratic-federalist identity through empathetic Affect and inclusive dialogic Engagement. In all three manifestos, there is a structural conflict of rhetorical strength and specificity of implementation that has implications for democratic accountability in Pakistan. Results help to deepen the understanding of political parties' use of evaluative language to create ideological identity and to convince voters. The study also proves that Appraisal Theory is a fruitful theoretical tool for analyzing political discourse and political communication in Pakistan during election times.