Using an investigation of a technical policy issue, this paper demonstrates the utility of employing an issue networks approach to understanding the dynamics among those concerned about the threat of earthquakes to the province of British Columbia, Canada and the state of Washington, United States. Such an approach focuses on issue emergence in the early stages of agenda building. This research demonstrates how scientific and technical expertise, in the absence of political leadership, is an unrivaled source of presumptive rights leading to key actor status within a specialized policy community. A complementary finding is that career‐related rationales provide the overwhelming motivation for issue network participatio