Weapons of the Powerful: Authoritarian Elite Competition and Politicized Anticorruption in China

What motivates authoritarian regimes to crack down on corruption? We argue that just as partisan competition in democracies tends to politicize corruption, authoritarian leaders may exploit anticorruption campaigns to target rival supporters during internal power struggles for consolidating their power base. We apply this theoretical framework to provincial leadership turnover in China and test it using an anticorruption data set. We find that intraelite power competition, captured by the informal power configuration of government incumbents and their predecessors, can increase investigations of corrupt senior officials by up to 20%. The intensity of anticorruption propaganda exhibits a similar pattern. The findings indicate that informal politics can propel strong anticorruption drives in countries without democratically-accountable institutions, although the drives tend to be selective, arbitrary, and factionally biased.postprin

A β-mannan utilisation locus in Bacteroides ovatus involves a GH36 α-galactosidase active on galactomannans

The Bacova_02091 gene in the β-mannan utilisation locus of Bacteroides ovatus encodes a family GH36 α-galactosidase (BoGal36A), transcriptionally upregulated during growth on galactomannan. Characterisation of recombinant BoGal36A reveals unique properties compared to other GH36 α-galactosidases, which preferentially hydrolyse terminal α-galactose in raffinose family oligosaccharides. BoGal36A prefers hydrolysing internal galactose substitutions from intact and depolymerized galactomannan. BoGal36A efficiently releases (>90%) galactose from guar and locust bean galactomannans, resulting in precipitation of the polysaccharides. As compared to other GH36 structures, the BoGal36A 3D model displays a loop deletion, resulting in a wider active site cleft which likely can accommodate a galactose-substituted polymannose backbone. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved