Narrative Coalitions and Strategies in the Policy‐Making for Iran's Startup Ecosystem: A Narrative Policy Framework Analysis

ABSTRACT Amid the global rise of startup ecosystems as engines of technological innovation and economic growth, Iran's policymaking for its ecosystem remains a contested arena shaped by hybrid governance and political opacity. This study asks: What narrative coalitions shape this policy arena, and what strategies do they employ under varying conditions? The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is ideally suited, providing a structured lens to analyze narrative coalitions in this context. This article employs NPF to examine policy narrations and narrative strategies in the development of Iran's startup ecosystem from 2012 to 2019. The findings reveal three primary narrative coalitions: Catch‐up (governmental actors pushing alignment with global trends for economic and governance benefits), Wealth Creation (non‐governmental actors advocating high‐risk investments for market growth), and Infiltration (other governmental actors framing the ecosystem as a security threat). These coalitions exhibit enduring alliances with adaptive strategies, with Catch‐up and Wealth Creation supporters converging to promote development, while Infiltration backers oppose it—highlighting variation and shifts in narrations within this hybrid political system. Narrative strategies evolve around the 2017 turning point (U.S. sanctions, domestic tensions): pre‐2017, pro‐development coalitions (Catch‐up and Wealth Creation) used scope limitation and angel shifts to counter Infiltration's expansion and devil shifts; post‐2017, patterns reverse, with Infiltration persisting in scope expansion via reframing. As the first empirical NPF study in the Middle East and North Africa, this qualitative analysis offers insights into narration dynamics in non‐liberal governance structures, contributing to policymaking and conflict understanding while advancing NPF's transportability across geographies and governing systems.