California is often seen as a model for seismic safety policy, both nationally and internationally. This project has two specific objectives. The first is the development of a detailed history of 12 major pieces of California seismic safety legislation covering more than 50 years. The focus will be on the origins of the legislation and its move through the legislative process. The second objective is the explication and testing of a model that takes a particular subset of seismic safety policy (building safety) and attempts to explain policy learning and evolution, especially at the state level, by interrelating disaster events, institutional capacity building, and policy innovation. Data will be used from archives, documents, tapes and transcripts from an oral history source, and participant observation.
