The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

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The Social Lives of the Elite: Friendship and Power

in Pakistan

Rosita Armytage

To cite this article: Rosita Armytage (2015) The Social Lives of the Elite: Friendship
and Power in Pakistan, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 16:5, 448-463, DOI:
10.1080/14442213.2015.1076887

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2015.1076887

Published online: 07 Oct 2015.

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The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2015
Vol. 16, No. 5, 448–463, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2015.1076887

The Social Lives of the Elite: Friendship

and Power in Pakistan
Rosita Armytage

The ways in which elite individuals perpetuate their power and privilege and so reinforce
existing social inequalities within developing country contexts are analysed in this
article. I argue that in highly politically and economically unstable environments,
socialising between the uppermost bureaucratic, political, military and business elite
serves to create intimacy and obligation between individuals who may be functionally
useful to one another, and strengthens and reinforces elite privilege. In examining the
motivations that drive the ways in which elites socialise, I contend that the blending
of affective and instrumental relationships is reflective of the deep insecurity
experienced by elites in contexts where they cannot expect their power and privilege
to be upheld by the state.

Keywords: Elites; Power; State Power; Instrumental Friendship; Social Inequality

As we walk towards the stately, illuminated home of one of Islamabad’s most exclusive
suburbs, trickles of laughter and music drift down to greet us. The cul-de-sac is clogged
by Landcruisers, Mercedes and BMWs. Drivers emerge to open the back doors of cars,
while the shalwar kameez clad workers of the construction site opposite survey the
procession of suits and gowns from where they rest on the stacked bricks of tomor-
row’s labour. A white-suited member of the household staff leads us through the
fairy-lit and manicured gardens, through the small huddles of men in black suits
smoking and drinking whiskey-pani and past the brightly decorated, bejewelled and
kohl-lined women perched on couches across each side of the garden’s periphery. A
waiter appears as if from nowhere and, as I take my wine, he immediately offers to
make my friend Mehmud something stronger. With drinks in hand, Mehmud
steers me towards the host: he is one of Islamabad’s most well-known politicians
and wealthiest businessmen. We are introduced to a group of what the host claims

Rosita Armytage is a PhD candidate in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National
University. Correspondence to: Rosita Armytage, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. Email: rosita.armytage@anu.edu.au

© 2015 The Australian National University

 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 449

are ‘four of the most influential men in Pakistan’ and the host disappears to circulate
amongst the familiar crowd of faces. The most authoritative of this group introduces
himself as a retired naval officer and former advisor to both President Musharraf and
President Zardari and assures me that he can help with my research on business and
politics in Pakistan.
At parties like this one the lines between social and business networks blur as
one mingles with the highest tier of Pakistan’s commercial, political and military
elite; retired senior military, senior bureaucrats and major businessmen engage
in shared leisure activities centred around drinking, smoking and sharing insider
information based on first-hand experience as well as rumour and gossip
gleaned from other members of the elite classes. One of the important functions
of these events is to create a space of intimacy between individuals who may be
functionally useful to one another. By hosting events to which people want to
come, which are known for having interesting and high-status guests and, in all
but the most pious elite circles, quality alcohol (a lure in itself given the difficulty
of procuring it on the black market), the business, political, bureaucratic and mili-
tary elite generate trust; through sharing recreation, they develop relationships that
transcend instrumental goals and take on genuine qualities of affection and
friendship.
The majority, though certainly not all, of these events include the liberal consump-
tion of alcohol, a shared act of illegality that unites those partaking in a mild act of
transgression. The drinking of alcohol in a social space outside the family also
serves as an indicator of ‘liberal’ identity—to partake in this setting is to associate
oneself with a vaguely defined ‘liberal’ world view, for instance, some measure of
support for women’s engagement in public life and public spaces. Conversely, at the
dinners and gatherings of the more religiously adherent elite, alcohol is entirely
absent and the serving of Coca Cola or Pakola (the locally produced, nationalist-
themed alternative) serves as an indicator of piety. Amongst the most religiously con-
servative of the elite, the absence of alcohol in social settings is also accompanied by
the absence of women.
This sharing of leisure and enjoyment amongst men with the objective of fostering
intimacy that may facilitate business or political objectives is not unique to Pakistan, or
to developing country contexts. Examples of how elite businessmen engage in shared
revelry, heavy drinking and flirtations with women as part of a purposeful strategy to
transcend the formality of work relationships are explored in both Allison’s (2009)
research on the interactions of Japanese businessmen in hostess bars and Osburg’s
(2013) research on the class of ‘new rich’ businessmen in China. In both accounts,
the authors demonstrate how elite men seek to generate affective ties that will in
turn prove advantageous to their business transactions. The experience of elite male
networking in Pakistan is, however, differentiated from that engaged in by men in
the developed economies of Japan, and increasingly China, in that the instrumental
element of these relationships is not only a strategy to maximise profits; it is also a
450 R. Armytage
critical means to insulate the elite against the vagaries of the state and the insecurity of
the economic and political environment.
Foucault (1980) conceives of state power as ‘a machinery that no one owns’ (156).
It has its own operational momentum which functions independently, even from the
most powerful members of its society. But Foucault also argues that power can be exer-
cised ‘only over free subjects … who are faced with a field of possibilities in which
several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse comportments, may be realized’
(Foucault 1982, 790). Conceptualised this way, individuals are constrained by the state
and its pervasive influence in processes ranging from production to kinship and
family, and yet remain free to respond within these strictures in ways they perceive
to be most advantageous to their interests. This article will examine the ways in
which elite individuals resist and subvert the constraints of state power in the
context of Pakistan’s weakly enforced and easily manipulated government institutions,
political instability, poorly regulated economy and dangerous security situation. In
particular, this article will explore the role of instrumental friendships as a strategy
critical to perpetuating elite power in politically and economically unstable environ-
ments. Thus it seeks to make a theoretical contribution to debates on the exercise of
elite power within developing economy contexts.
The much wider issues of how power and privilege are protected and social inequal-
ity perpetuated frame this study. Many scholars have examined how social inequality
is perpetuated from the perspective of the poor and marginalised; in complement to
this research, my study analyses the reproduction of social inequality by examining
the experience of the elite. In doing so, I seek to illuminate the enormous challenges
non-elite individuals face in obtaining upward social mobility in developing country
contexts. As much has been written on the colonial and postcolonial influences that
have shaped the specific formation of power in South Asia, I narrow my focus to con-
tributing to understandings of how elite power is perpetuated and maintained through
specific patterns of elite socialising.
I argue that it is necessary to eliminate the sharp delineations between political
science and anthropology and to merge the meta-level insights of the former with
the specificity of how these relationships of power are enacted between individuals
in their daily lives, and in specific interactions. Both Khan (2010) and North et al.
(2007) argue that the distribution of power among groups and individuals in develop-
ing country contexts is allocated not according to impersonal Weberian type insti-
tutions as it is in advanced capitalist economies, but according to the will of
powerful individuals. They argue that as the formal mandate of institutions in these
states does not reflect the way power is distributed across socio-political groups in
practice, the most powerful groups and individuals subvert the intended impartiality
of formal institutions to better serve their own interests. While a simplistic reading of
these analyses can create a deceptive dichotomy between developed and developing
economies that obscures the universal nature of elite collaboration (and to some
extent collusion), the permeability of state institutions to outside influence is better
understood as operating along a continuum which encompasses both developed
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 451

and developing states. At the extreme end of this continuum, bureaucratic institutions
that are intended to operate according to objective and predictable rules, and to apply
equally to all citizens, are frequently subverted in favour of those who are elite and
powerful.
While Khan (2010) and North et al. (2007) focus on understanding why and how
failing institutions persist in developing economies while more effective institutions
fail to emerge, their frameworks also provide important insights into the ways in
which elite groups sustain themselves through incorporating other powerful factions
into the ruling coalition. In this process of absorbing other elite groups, the ruling
elite minimise possible threats to their power and contestations over their chosen dis-
tribution of resources. These meta-level observations have important implications for
the reproduction of social inequality and disadvantage in developing states, but what
these analyses do not explain is: how, by whom, with whom and in what circumstances
these acts of elite collusion and resistance are enacted. If these meta-theories cannot
reveal the strategies, relationships and sentiments in which the elite engage to perpe-
tuate their own privilege, and with it social inequality, what can ethnographic analysis,
for instance of the dynamics of the scene described above, tell us about how elites
maintain their power, and exclude others from their privilege?
The Pakistani elite, though constituting a largely unified social order, is actually
comprised of separate and distinct sub-groups: the uppermost tier of politics, business,
the bureaucracy and the military. The cohesiveness of these disparate groups, with
their hold over separate but equally powerful institutions, has been critical in enabling
the families that comprise the elite to retain their position of privilege and preemi-
nence over the past seventy or more years. The wealth of these groups, and often
also their political or military influence, can be traced back to the years immediately
pre- or proceeding partition with India in 1947 (Khan 1963, 1999; Haq 1968;
Papanek 1962, 1972; Weiss 1991). Further, though the relative power and wealth of
individual families within this group has risen and fallen with various political
regimes, many have retained their position in the top first percentile of Pakistani
society.
Anthropologists have long addressed the vital role of peer relationships and net-
works in retaining power, and yet these insights have seldom been used outside the
discipline to contribute to understandings of how power structures are perpetuated.
Critical amongst these works is Fredrik Barth’s (1959) seminal ethnography on ‘Pol-
itical Leadership among Swat Pathans’, which included a focus on the ways in which
leaders of local political factions entered into alliances with one another in addition to
seeking support from their less powerful followers. Barth argued that social equals
established alliances in opposition to perceived threats from outsiders, and that the
solidarity of these alliances ‘derives from the mutual strategic advantage they obtain
from the relationship’ (Barth 1959, 105). His research stressed the importance of ‘indi-
vidual captaincy’ as the key determinant of political decision-making in Swat over
approaches popular at the time that viewed social structure as key to understanding
political power. His argument—that the free will of individuals to make or break
452 R. Armytage
alliances in accordance with their own interests is central in determining political
structures—framed much of the research within political anthropology that followed.
However, Barth’s emphasis on individual decision-making and free choice also
downplayed the structural constraints on these choices his own ethnography revealed:
the choices of the Swati residents he examines were highly constrained by the hierarch-
ical interactions observed in the men’s house (hujra), the reciprocal obligations of
patrons to their followers and by the constraints to social mobility imposed by limit-
ations on marriage outside the caste group (jaat). Asad’s (1972) critique revealed that
the structural constraints on individual decision-making that Barth had argued were
absent in Swati society were not only present, but determinative of Swat’s political
structure and social order. His critique showed that the political structure of Swat
society was not, as Barth had argued, determined by shifting personal interests and
individual alliances of an entirely voluntary nature, but rather by an embedded struc-
tural inequality which positioned Pakhtun landlords as a ‘sovereign class’ who pursued
their own collective interests at the expense of the landless non-Pakhtuns. The
Pakhtun landlords circulated land amongst themselves, sat on jirgas (tribal councils)
to which only Pakhtun landowners could be members and collected rents from non-
Pakhtuns living on lands to which they laid claim by virtue of their position in the
upper tiers of the caste-like groupings of Swat Pathan society. His re-analysis of
Barth’s ethnography highlighted the exploitation of landless groups by the landed
Pakhtun elite, revealing the hidden class structure in Barth’s ethnography that his
own analysis had obfuscated.1
My own work on the elites of Pakistan reveals both the structurally accorded power
and privilege of the dominant class, and the alliances that elites of equal status enter
into with one another for mutual advantage. I build upon Asad’s critique of Barth in
arguing that only elite groups have the ability to exercise the free choice that Barth
ascribed to all members of Swat society. I also contend that while elites form tempor-
ary dyadic alliances in pursuit of various small advantages, as a class, Pakistan’s con-
temporary elite—comprised of all ethnic groups—also maintain a high degree of
mutual solidarity in pursuit of their broader shared interest in maintaining structural
inequalities from which they benefit, for instance, in enabling the weak enforcement of
Pakistan’s incapacitated system of taxation.
More recently, Lyon (2002) applied Barth’s research on alliance building strategies
between peers to contemporary middle- and lower-middle-class Pakistanis.2 Lyon
(2002, 228) argues that Pakistanis of all social classes seek out patronage relationships
‘to deal with situations in which there is no market, political or other structural secur-
ity’. Importantly for understanding the strategies employed by the elite, he further

1
Barth (1981) defends his argument that choice of political affiliation is a defining feature of Swat society in a
chapter entitled ‘Swat Pathans Revisited’ in his book Features of Person and Society in Swat: Collected Essays
on Pathans but argues that his 1959 analysis did not imply the absence of constraints upon the choices available
to each individual.
2
Lyon’s 2002 manuscript was subsequently published in 2004 as An Anthropological Analysis of Local Politics and
Patronage in a Pakistani Village.
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 453

argues that individuals in relationships of near social parity oscillate between the roles
of patron/client, depending on the contextual and situational need (Lyon 2004). This
observation is important for understanding the ways in which elites perpetuate their
power, but given that intra-elite relationships entail no significant power differential,
I argue that they are better articulated in terms of ‘instrumental friendship’ and
cliques. Wolf (2001, 176) defined instrumental friendship as relationships in which
the purpose of accessing resources is integral, though genuine affection is often also
present, and cliques as having ‘important instrumental functions, in rendering an
unpredictable situation more predictable and in providing for mutual support
against surprise upsets from within or without’ (179). Importantly, he argued that
instrumental friendships are common in contexts in which there is a struggle for econ-
omic and social resources, and that in these dyadic relationships, each individual
serves as a sponsor for the other, and a connecting link to those outside the dyad.
Both instrumental friendships, and the cliques of which they are a part, are used pri-
marily to extend social networks in pursuit of economic or social gain.
Throughout this paper I draw on examples of how social relationships between elite
men are used to reinforce their power and privilege by creating endogamous social
spaces that preclude the entrance of non-elites. My concern in this paper is to
examine the ways in which elite males in developing country contexts foster peer-
to-peer relationships through social interaction, and how they make use of these
relationships to overcome obstacles to their business and political success. I show
how these friendships blend affect and instrumentality as an important strategy in pro-
tecting their power and privilege.
Gathering ethnographic research on elite groups is notoriously difficult; hence the
limited studies on elites undertaken by anthropologists. Over a period of thirteen
months of fieldwork in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, I conducted more than
ninety interviews with some of the country’s most powerful, influential and wealthy
businessmen and politicians, with each new introduction leading to one or several
more. I visited their homes and attended their parties, dinners, private clubs and wed-
dings; socialised with their families, friends and colleagues; had countless meals, cups
of chai and glasses of whiskey; and had many people share their stories as they became
my friends. My access to this group was no doubt aided by the novelty of my status as a
foreign female researcher in a place where few foreign researchers conduct long-term
fieldwork, the cultural capital my informants associated with conducting PhD research
and the social capital I acquired by being introduced as the friend and guest of several
socially and politically prominent individuals who took it upon themselves to facilitate
my entrance into elite circles.
To some extent I also participated in the instrumental friendships that characterised
much of this social structure: where I did not bring power or influence, as a guest at
these events I brought the novelty and status of being an attentive, comparatively
young, foreign female in a social scene dominated by often significantly older powerful
men. As with all instrumental friendships, the instrumental nature of these relation-
ships was not clearly delineated from genuine affection. Many of those who
454 R. Armytage
participated in my research were not only my subjects, they also became close confi-
dantes and friends.
The remainder of this paper is divided into two sections. The first explores how
elites foster affective relationships with other powerful and influential individuals in
business, the bureaucracy, formal politics and the military through endogamous
elite male socialising. The second section provides specific examples of how these
relationships are called upon to deal with challenges to elite power or privilege.

Endogamous Socialising
Returning to the party scene described at the beginning of this article, as dinner is
announced the former presidential advisor escorts me to a table resplendent with a
centerpiece of overflowing white roses, and I find myself seated to the left of
Farook, a senior official of the Capital Development Authority, the government
body responsible for permit and licence-granting among a variety of other city plan-
ning matters in Islamabad, and his wife Ghazal. We each introduce ourselves and
Ghazal begins engaging us in small talk regarding an upcoming gala event she is
organising. She laughs at the men’s jokes, and several times references her husband’s
accomplishments and standing, drawing him into the centre of the conversation. As
the plates for the first course are cleared, Farook leans towards the political advisor
and enquires after former President ‘Zardari Sahib’s’ health. He then asks the
advisor to share the former President’s mobile phone number and arrange a
meeting between them over the coming week. It is a commonplace exchange. The tele-
phone number to contact is entered into his mobile phone, the waiters serve tea and
coffee and the conversation moves on to other issues.
The hosting and attendance of intimate dinners, parties and events with other
powerful and politically influential elites forms a critical component of how elites
create and strengthen relationships with other elites from across Pakistan’s business,
bureaucratic, political and military/security circles. These pleasurable social activities
and the sharing of valuable political, economic and social knowledge create an inner
circle of trust in which to strengthen existing friendships and cultivate new acquain-
tances. The performative elements of these parties enable the business elite, and the
political, bureaucratic and military elite with whom they are connected, to display
their wealth and connections. But the display also has an important functional
purpose in the generation and production of wealth and influence—these forums
provide an opportunity for the elite to identify one another, to reinforce social hierar-
chy, to share information and to facilitate the introductions that broaden political and
business opportunities.
For the Pakistani elite, regardless of their origins in the business, bureaucratic, mili-
tary or political strata, the political life of the nation is something with which they are
comfortable, familiar and often even intimate—whether that intimacy involves posses-
sing insider political knowledge by personally serving in a political capacity, or
through occupying the same social circles as the elected political leaders who
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 455

determine state policy. This intimacy with politics is, I argue, one of the primary ingre-
dients of ‘being elite’ in Pakistan. The level of access elites have to those in political
power, and the extent to which they can either passively or actively influence national
and local politics is in large part determined by an individual’s wealth and status. Even
for those who do not follow politics closely, the individuals with direct and indirect
political influence are known to one another, or are only one social connection
away. As a result, at its uppermost levels the country’s economic system is closed,
and the elite—not legal statutes—create, control and guard their domain, serving as
gatekeepers to those outsiders who might seek to gain entry.
To be part of the elite urban social scenes of Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad, one must
be vetted and invited by an insider. Indeed, access to these elite events requires that a
person have not only economic capital, but also a sufficient degree of what Bourdieu
(1986, 2013) terms ‘social and cultural capital’. This encompasses the people one
knows and is publicly recognised by their family history and current standing, and
the social assets that promote social mobility—intellect, dress and mannerisms,
among others.
One of the most crucial modes of transmission in the acquisition of both cultural
and social capital is education. Most of Pakistan’s elite attend one of only a very
few schools—chief amongst them, Aitchison College (formerly the Punjab Chief’s
College established in the late 1800s by the British), the Lahore American School
and Karachi Grammar. These schools are exclusively English medium, follow
British, American or International Baccalaureate school curriculums and equip stu-
dents to compete for entrance into universities across the world.
Attendance at these schools not only provides the high-quality education necessary
to assume leadership roles in elite social, political and business circles, it provides
training in deportment and recreational skills limited to members of the elite, such
as polo. The alumni of these schools fill the senior-most roles in the government,
business community and political leadership, and the alumni network is strong,
with members known to one other, even if not personally, then invariably through
the reputation of their families. Attendance at these schools thus provides a system
of social verification. Though wealth is a prerequisite, one cannot simply buy entrance
into elite circles. An individual must have acquired the dispositions of the elite habitus,
a process undertaken from childhood, in order to gain admittance to elite social, pol-
itical and business networks. In this sense, the perceived quality of the individual and
of the individuals he or she knows becomes a resource to be utilised to access those
with influence or those in a position to offer opportunities.
Developing close relationships with those in a position to provide assistance when
problems arise is something Pakistanis across all social classes do. Lyon (2004) argues
that Pakistanis develop relationships of mutual assistance with near equals to reduce
threats to their power that the state cannot be relied upon to protect against. These
threats may include extortion, bribes, insider trading, the filching of proprietary
business information or the spreading of damaging slander. Cultivating an adequately
broad network of individuals with some degree of influence is as important for elite
456 R. Armytage
groups as it is for the broader Pakistani population, but with an important difference:
unlike other Pakistanis, the elite maintain and cultivate a broad network comprised of
the nation’s most powerful and influential individuals. They actively cultivate friends,
associates, patrons and clients, but also a network of allies and supporters with comp-
lementary sources of power: the business community, the bureaucracy, political parties
and the military. As a result, the ability of the elite to intervene on behalf of those in
their network, either by addressing the problem directly or calling on their extended
peer group in the process, is both unparalleled within the broader population and—
when they deem it worthwhile to do so—enormously effective. By assisting others
with power or influence within certain critical institutions, organisations or well-con-
nected families, Pakistani business elites ensure the support of powerful and influential
individuals indebted, willing and obliged to assist when threats to their own power or
assets emerge. They thereby insulate themselves against outside threats to their assets
or position through the diverse assets of those they know and with whom they
socialise.
The owner of one of Pakistan’s major media houses described to me his own process
of cultivating powerful connections as a critical factor in his ability to retain his leading
position in the national media and in securing his multiple other businesses. He lifted
up his phone to show me his phone directory and proclaimed:
To be successful in business in Pakistan you need affluence, connections, parties,
socialising … I keep a budget for entertaining and parties. I know everyone. I
have all the powerful big boys on my speed dial: the Prime Minister, the Chief Min-
ister, the Head of Army Operations for the whole of Punjab … Anyone who is big
enough has access to these devils. My family is responsible for 15 per cent of the
parties in Lahore—for those who matter, that is. It is only a handful of people
who host these types of parties. All the ‘who’s who’ mingle at these few people’s
homes.
There may have been some hyperbole in such a statement, but given his economic
capital, his position as son of one of the country’s most well-known and widely respected
politicians and as one of the people best positioned to shape the public national dis-
course, it was not an outlandish claim. Like most powerful Pakistanis, his power did
not come only from his economic or professional position, but from the cultural
capital inherited from his family—from their reputation in politics, business and,
importantly, their reputation for entertaining: his family’s parties were famous and invi-
tations were sought after. When I was invited to the mehndi event of his brother’s
wedding some months later I could see why: it was spectacularly opulent, with exuber-
ant dancing, boutique-clad guests swathed in silk and chiffon of every colour and at least
half of the elite businessmen I had interviewed in Lahore in attendance. It was at that
point I began to realise the degree to which the elite classes were interlinked: though
I had identified and met many of them through separate contacts, they were known
to one another, had gone to school together and many remained friends.
In Islamabad, a former senior official from the National Accountability Bureau
(NAB), the government department charged with identifying and investigating
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 457

corruption charges, described a friend he recognised as being particularly adroit at the

process of cultivating social connections for economic advantage. He noted that a
major component of his friend’s business involved networking through the hosting
of small exclusive parties in his home. At each of these parties he built his guest list
around a carefully selected ‘target’ guest with whom he intended to enter into a
business arrangement, or to seek a favour, in the medium to long term. He crafted
these lists with great care. The former official explained:
I have a friend who owns the best [home] bar in Islamabad. He calls himself a
business consultant, and he works for a number of international companies. He reg-
ularly hosts these garden parties, perfectly catered, with only around twenty people
attending each party. These parties are attended by Generals, members of the ISI
[Inter-Services Intelligence agency], any kind of person who it may be helpful to
know at some point in the future … One or two of his employees will also be
present at every party in case they need to follow up, or provide information. He
also has an old Islamabad socialite on his payroll, just there to help bring in the
right people and facilitate introductions. Usually there will be only one or two
people attending each party as his target, the rest are just there to add to the atmos-
phere. The one target person will be someone from whom he needs a favour. This
way he has government officials dining at his home before they even need to con-
sider whether to issue him a contract. The entertaining is not a bribe, the entertain-
ment is just to lure them in.
The specific goals of each of these events, and hence the way guest lists are composed
for various social events, can vary considerably. In the large party described at the
beginning of the article, the politician host had invited a large cross-section of the Isla-
mabad elite, drawing on senior bureaucrats, former military and the capital’s most
prominent businessmen. The singer had been flown in from Karachi, as had the
chefs of the country’s best restaurants, and the event served the purpose of rewarding
the men who had supported the host politically over the previous year, and of gener-
ating goodwill amongst those he hoped would support him in the coming year. Rather
than fostering a specific relationship for a particular purpose—which would have been
impossible given the 200 guests he was obligated to circulate amongst—he was
strengthening and rewarding his existing network and, importantly, providing them
with a space and with ‘the right people’ in which to strengthen their own. At the
wedding celebration of the media owner described above, the focus of the event was
to celebrate and commemorate the wedding of his brother to the daughter of
another prominent businessman, to draw together the families and extended friend-
ship circle of the families on both sides and to demonstrate their influence and afflu-
ence through an opulent display of wealth and refined taste which consolidated both
families’ position within their respective social circles.
In more intimate social settings, like that hosted by the businessman in Islamabad,
the host may have a more specific goal for the gathering: a relationship to consolidate;
hard-to-obtain information to elicit on a new business opportunity or government
tender; insights on political crises and ongoing instability; leadership changes;
which deals are likely to collapse or speculation on how business is likely to be
458 R. Armytage
affected by extended government shut-downs, road closures or increased security
measures.
Inherent in this process of giving of gifts and favours is the risk that it will not be
successful in consolidating the desired relationship. Not all courtship efforts will result
in the creation of a friendship or an advantageous acquaintanceship, but for most who
engage in this process of social cultivation, the risk that a favour may not be recipro-
cated is an accepted part of the costs involved in business. The risk is, however, miti-
gated by the broad dispersal of gifts, favours and entertaining—multiple relationships
are cultivated in close succession or simultaneously, making it very likely that at least a
number of those pursued will prove useful in overcoming future obstacles.

Utilising Instrumental Friendships

Connections are vital not only in securing business opportunities but in protecting
business interests. Indeed, in both developed and developing economies, the elite
and affluent face the prospect of encroachments by government regulators keen to
supervise business transactions, and tax and redistribute part of the proceeds.
However, in Pakistan and other developing nations, it is expected that at least some
of the regulators involved in business will seek to extort businessmen and make them-
selves a quick profit. Businesses, therefore, face the double burden of formal state regu-
lation and informal coercion.
The personal relationships developed through repeated acts of socialising are a way
of ensuring that elite individuals are able to repel both the legal and informal costs
imposed by the state, and to remain competitive in an environment where the least
connected individuals pay the highest prices in terms of delays and bribes from gov-
ernment officials. The possession of a sufficiently broad network of powerful friends
minimises the possibility that various parts of the state will be able to make and
enforce unmitigated and overly damaging demands. As a result of the need to recipro-
cate assistance from friends in circumventing state demands or repelling the threats of
competitors, Pakistanis devote a great proportion of their own time and efforts to
addressing the threats faced by those in their network. Interventionism, the efforts
of one person on another’s behalf, is therefore an integral strategy of Pakistan’s
social organisation, and a defining feature of Pakistan’s economic and social structure
(Lyon 2004).
The transactions and tangible favours that make up this generalised assistance
are evident in the account my friend Farid, a successful industrialist from Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, told me about his relationship with his friend, the
Superintendent of Police. The assistance provided in this case illustrates the ambi-
guity between affect and instrumental relationships that often characterises elite
relationships:
I have a friend who is an SP [Superintendent of Police] and he is very clean and
known for not taking bribes. But the other night he calls me up and says ‘Yaar
[friend], your village has the best kebab in KP, could you please send some to me
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 459

for my party?’3 And of course I do it. I give him little favours, little gifts like this that
are so small that they do not even seem like bribes. But over a year of giving small
gifts, I could easily have given one person 20,000 dollars worth of gifts. Is that a
bribe? It is a favour and of course he will have to return it to me. If I have a
problem with the police, I call him and he solves it for me. He would not take
any money from me, but items and gifts, as long as they are not too big at one
time, he will take.
Farid’s relationship with the Superintendent was valuable to him, and it was some-
thing of which he was proud. Being seen together at a cafe increased his public stand-
ing. Further, having it known that he had an affective relationship with a senior
member of the police force served as a degree of protection against those who
might seek to extort him or interfere with the running of his business, for example,
by directly mitigating his vulnerability to demands from corrupt members of the
police force. Having an instrumental friendship with someone in this position not
only ensured Farid was personally protected from abuses of power by police lower
in the ranks, it also ensured that he was able to draw on this relationship to provide
favours to other friends being charged, investigated or abused by the police.
As this friendship demonstrates, the ability of the elite to generate relationships invol-
ving mutual assistance with their approximate peers—in this case within the police—
enables them to use these relationships to extract specific, tangible favours. As a
result, elite power and privilege is routinely reinforced and consolidated in a highly
transactional and individualistic manner, operating not primarily through organised,
even if informal, networks, but through individual-level, often small, transactions.
These micro-level interactions shore up elite power, and configure it in specific ways
that reflect not only the desire of elite individuals to pursue economic incentives, but
also the desire of individuals to generate and reward affection, help and loyalty.
As a learned strategy to reduce vulnerability, Lyon (2002) argues that all Pakistanis
assume shifting dominant or subordinate roles in response to the structural vulner-
ability of living in a society in which market, political and structural security does
not exist. He argues that patron/client relationships in Pakistan are ‘elastic nodes
within human resource networks made up of both patrons and clients’, with individ-
uals serving variously in both roles depending on ‘who is in contextual or situational
need’ (Lyon 2002, 222–223). As is clear in the example above, the provider of assist-
ance shifts depending on the circumstances and the relationship of parity is
maintained.
Even accessing those bureaucrats tasked with fostering the effective running of
business can be highly problematic without a personal introduction to facilitate the
transaction and protect the interests of the businessmen involved. A former bureaucrat
at the National Accountability Bureau, described the challenges business people face in
accessing and obtaining assistance from government departments:

3
Most of the members of this elite community blend English and Urdu in their conversation, or intersperse Urdu
terms in primarily English conversation, and vice versa.
460 R. Armytage
Accessing people in power is one of the biggest problems in Pakistan. For instance, if
someone wanted to contact one of us at NAB, they would not be able to do it. We
just cannot be contacted. Many business people pay a huge amount of money to get
this access.
I have a businessman friend, who is the sole importer of a particular item, and he
had an import licence cancelled. We were meant to be having lunch and he kept
calling me and apologising for being late because he was sitting in a car outside a
government office while one of his staff people went inside to bribe a government
official to have his import licence reinstated. I asked him who he was paying, and
once I knew which agency it was I realised that the head of the agency was my
walking partner [the person I exercise with each evening]. I told him to call his
staff person back right away and to come and see me.
That evening when I was walking I explained the situation to my government friend
and asked him to just meet with my friend whose licence had been cancelled, to
review the merits of the case and then to decide as he saw fit. So there was a
meeting between them and it became apparent that a low-level staff in the depart-
ment had cancelled my friend’s licence on a pure technicality just to extract money
from him. Cancelled licences of course cause huge losses to businessmen as their
items spoil at the harbour or in storage while their shipments are delayed, so they
are generally willing to pay a two million rupee bribe and take that from the
profits. It is part of their cost of doing business. He asked me what he could do
to repay the favour, and I told him that my government friend wouldn’t take
money. My businessman friend was shocked that my government friend had
been willing to do a favour for him without him needing to pay. I told him he
could take us both out for a nice dinner instead. So that is what he did.
By taking the bureaucrat and the former NAB official out to dinner, the businessman
not only reciprocated the favour they had each provided him, he also consolidated his
relationship with the bureaucrat. The act of accepting a favour, and then repaying it in
a social setting over a meal and relaxed conversation, allowed him to broaden his
network of powerful friends, and enabled him to develop a direct, rather than
mediated, relationship with a senior official in a position to assist him with his business
in the future.
Favours and gifts are a fundamental part of maintaining the relationships and net-
works needed for elite businessmen in Pakistan. In opposition to bribes, which are
financial payments for clearly defined benefits, the ambiguity of the purpose of a
gift is the very reason gifts are so useful. The Chinese concept of guanxi, an exchange
that involves both ‘human feeling and material obligation’ (Kipnis 1997, 23) closely
approximates the concept of gift-giving with an instrumental purpose in Pakistan.
Smart’s (1993) research on business in China showed that gifts and bribes in business
are different only because of the way the gift is given, not because of the type or value
of the gift. He explained that for the giving of an item to be received as a gift:
the relationship must be presented as primary and the exchanges, useful though
they may be, treated as only secondary. If, instead, it becomes apparent that the
relationship involves only material interest and is characterised by direct and
immediate payment, the exchange is classified as one of bribery (399).
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 461

Consequently, in developing countries where weakly enforced regulations make

mutual trust a requisite precondition for large-scale business transactions, business
relationships involve a degree of personal friendship between those making a trans-
action (Smart 1993; Osburg 2013). In some circumstances, a veneer of friendship,
when accompanied by gifts and favours, is used to legitimise what may otherwise
be seen as an illegitimate, even unethical, transaction. In these contexts, the difference
between the exchange of gifts and a bribe is often a matter of how the process of gift- or
bribe-giving is performed and subsequently interpreted.
Favour-giving, of course, is a part of most friendships. What differentiates favour-
giving in the instances described above is the scale and source of that favour—a private
citizen giving their friend a favour shares their own resources (information, contacts or
goods), but a government servant (for example, a policeman or senior bureaucrat)
receiving gifts from a private businessman is now indebted to provide the businessman
with something of use to them. A public servant on a government wage is not in a pos-
ition to provide goods of substantial value to a much wealthier friend, but they do have
the power and ability to command other government employees to do their bidding, or
to provide information not otherwise available to private citizens as in the case of Farid
and his friend the police superintendent.
Favours between elites who engage in business often take the form of an opportu-
nity that is not available to others: this may be the sharing of insider information, the
awarding of a government contract, the offer to buy military-owned land or a special
price on a vital item required for manufacturing. Many of these opportunities are pre-
sented as private deals between individuals, even when they involve government or
military interests. In circumstances where regulations are being thwarted, preferential
contracts awarded or cartelistic practices implemented, trust between business parties
becomes even more critical to ensure government bodies such as the Federal Bureau of
Revenue or the National Accountability Bureau are kept at bay.

Conclusion
In this article I have charted how elite men foster advantageous relationships with
other elites in Pakistan through specific social practices. As the examples in this
article demonstrate, in many cases, elites draw their support from one another, par-
ticularly from those whose power may lie in corresponding areas of influence: busi-
nessmen may request the assistance of a friend or associate in politics, and
politicians may request information from someone in the military. What is also
evident is that the practice of socialising outside formal political and business contexts
generates relationships involving at least some degree of friendship, and blurs, often
with this specific intent, any clear delineation between purely functional and instru-
mental relationships, and those involving genuine affection, shared enjoyment and
sentiment. These relations are forged through exchanges, with an affective component
that emerges over time. Further, in examining the motivations that drive the ways in
which elites socialise, I posit that the blending of affective and instrumental objectives
462 R. Armytage
stems from the deep insecurity experienced by elites in developing countries where
they cannot expect their powers and privilege to be upheld by the institutions of the
state through enforceable contracts or uniformly applied laws.
Social patterns both reflect and constitute relations of power within a society, and
provide insights into how relations of power are rearticulated and reproduced. In
some cases elites advance their interests in business or politics by developing relation-
ships with specific individuals with the purpose of addressing pre-identified problems,
to meet a specific powerful individual, to counter an attempt at bribery or even to
impede fair competition from possible rivals. In other situations these relationships
serve as a shield against the uncertainties and unknowable challenges that may arise
as a result of formal government institutions that operate in highly personalised
and unpredictable ways.
Finally, this article also contributes to understanding the construction of systems of
social inequality and provides insights into the ways in which elite groups and social
classes are reproduced over time. In every country, individuals have sought to use their
friendships strategically at various times. In many parts of the world the division
between personal lives and careers is blurred beyond recognition, and friends are
expected to do what they can to improve the status and material assets of the
people closest to them. As is examined in the case of Pakistan, the blending of friend-
ship and instrumentality is an important strategy of elite survival. This is particularly
critical in developing country contexts where unstable political and economic environ-
ments, and institutions determined by highly personalistic practices, both pose threats
to the power of the elites and create opportunities for their power to be expanded and
solidified.

ORCID
Rosita Armytage http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6857-3778

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