Regulation is evil: An application of narrative policy analysis to regulatory debate in New Zealand

Using findings from research on the implementation of telephone number portability in New Zealand, we demonstrate how narrative analysis can account for how particular influence stories, or policy narratives, come to dominate the policy process. In this paper, we extend the concept of metanarrative, which to date has been interpreted as a story that policy makers use to recast policy problems. Policy metanarratives are shown to have strong pre-figurative effects and to be more pervasive than previously recognised.