Infrastructure is often described as strategically important. Yet substantiating strategic value and attributing regional influence require different evidence. The study examines Chabahar Port with an integrated framework drawing on strategic infrastructure, port regionalization, corridor governance, and relational power. Strategic value attribution, governance arrangements, functional developments, partner decisions, and influence attribution are kept distinct. The method is an exploratory mechanism-based case study of three bounded cooperation episodes, using episode-level reconstruction, within-case comparison, and claim-level evidence assessment. Episode B is the principal episode for bounded process reconstruction; Episodes A and C contribute complementary commitment records. The selected public records repeatedly attribute strategic purposes and distinguish authorizations, responsibilities, and commitments as governance objects. In Episode B, India Ports Global Limited explicitly invoked a reported temporary permission arrangement as the basis for its bidding-process decision. This bounded institutional link leaves the broader relationships from governance to focal partner acceptance and from Iranian action to regional influence unresolved. The contribution is an integrated framework and a case reconstruction that distinguishes documented institutional links from unresolved influence claims. Distinguishing institutional arrangements and functional observation from influence attribution specifies what evidence a conversion explanation requires. Incomplete attribution limits the claims supported by the available record; it does not establish the absence of influence.

Yujuan Zhou. Strategic Infrastructure and Regional Influence: Institutional Interfaces at Chabahar Port. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2026), Vol. 9, Issue 8: 53-60. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2026.090808.

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