Description
Hydrocarbon-dependent states present an enduring puzzle for international political economy: how do materially exposed actors sustain, and at times deepen, participation in regimes whose long-term objectives challenge their economic models? Existing scholarship on oil-exporting states in climate governance oscillates between accounts of obstruction and symbolic compliance, capturing neither the intensified institutional engagement evident since 2015 nor its selective character. This paper develops the concept of conditional integration as an analytical alternative. Through a case study of Saudi Arabia's engagement with the UNFCCC from 1995 to 2023 — drawing on Earth Negotiations Bulletin records, official submissions, and twelve elite interviews — it reconstructs how a hydrocarbon-dependent state combines sustained institutional involvement with calibrated conditionality and selective participation. The argument refines neoliberal institutionalism along three dimensions: transparency operates as credibility signalling, transaction costs as sovereignty management, and iteration as rule-shaping. These dynamics are observable in the enhancement–conditionality dialectic of NDC reporting, zero engagement with multilateral climate finance, and the embedding of the 'unabated' qualifier in COP 26–28 decisions. By identifying a third modality of engagement, the paper extends IPE debates on cooperation under conditions of structural divergence.