This article adopts a political economy of governance perspective to examine the institutional, executive, and transnational mechanisms shaping Iran’s non-oil exports within the framework of the Seventh Development Plan. The study addresses the gap between the Plan’s ambitious export targets and the existing governance capacity required for their realization. Unlike much of the domestic literature that emphasizes econometric determinants or policy incentives, this research conceptualizes exports as a multi-layered governance configuration embedded in the structure of power and state capacity. An integrated four-layer conceptual model, grounded in Political Settlements and Transnational Governance, is developed to analyze export governance across four analytical levels: (1) the nexus between policy and power, (2) state institutional and executive capacity, (3) transnational networks and diasporas, and (4) multi-level governance arrangements. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative-analytical design based on qualitative content analysis of key policy documents, institutional-performance assessment of major export-related bodies over the past decade, and semi-structured interviews with experts and practitioners. The findings reveal that misalignment between export objectives and prevailing power configurations, institutional fragmentation, weak inter-agency coordination, and underutilized transnational capacities have generated a persistent gap between formal targets and implementation. The analysis suggests that achieving the Seventh Plan’s export objectives requires the simultaneous reconfiguration of strategic priorities, institutional architecture, and transnational linkages within a coherent governance model.