Reneging and the subversion of protest-driven policy change in autocracies

In autocracies, low-capacity protest campaigns that lack material and political resources are common, but these weaknesses make them vulnerable to reneging – the deliberate failure to implement concessions as promised. Reneging is critical to how and whether protests actually influence policy. Why are some autocratic concessions to low-capacity campaigns undermined by reneging? I argue concessions are most likely to be implemented when they matter least for meaningfully altering policy. Concessions that provide isolated conflict resolution without constraining state actors elsewhere are more likely to be implemented, while reneging affects concessions that would constrain state agents elsewhere. I find support for this argument using an original dataset of low-capacity protest campaigns in Moscow, Russia, from 2013 to 2018, which includes a novel approach to concessions data. Additionally, I show that reneging is less likely when the campaign demobilizes after the concession, though the effect on constraining concessions is limited. I also address why campaigns about some issues, like labour disputes, experience less reneging, and show that concessions from higher levels of government are just as prone to reneging as lower levels. This article advances scholarship on authoritarian responsiveness and non-violent political control by highlighting reneging as an overlooked response to protest.