Volatility and Fragility in Trade Policy-Making in Iran, particularly under crisis conditions such as international sanctions, have led to interruptions in the decision‑making process and weakened institutional efficiency. The significance of this issue lies in the fact that its persistence threatens the stability of economic governance and the attainment of national policy objectives prescribed in documents such as Chapter 19 of Iran’s Seventh Development Plan.

The central question of this article is: How does the institutional mechanism shaping the resilience of trade policy-making operate under crisis conditions?

To address this, the study employs an institutional theoretical analysis using a deductive–comparative reasoning approach. Drawing upon the foundations of institutionalism, four key constructs are identified: Institutional Capacity (C_I), Policy Flexibility (F_P), Governance Cohesion (G_H), and Decision Resilience (R_D). Subsequently, the causal relationships among these constructs are formulated in the symbolic theoretical model (C_I + F_P → G_H → R_D) and validated through alignment with national policy documents and international studies.

The results indicate that the combination of institutional capacity and policy flexibility acts as the driving force in forming governance cohesion, which in turn serves as a necessary condition for decision resilience when facing crisis-induced tensions. Accordingly, strengthening adaptive and learning institutional structures constitutes a direct response to the article’s main question and represents a fundamental strategy for sustaining trade policy-making under conditions of crisis.