The research problem addressed in this article is the crisis of civil protection institutions on the example of Civil Defense in contemporary Poland. Civil protection institutions have become important parts in the non-military security of European countries, especially in the face of migration crises and the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the Civil Defense of the Republic of Poland became marginalized at the end of the second decade of the 21st century. The author's goal is to find an answer to the question about the causes of this unusual situation. To achieve this goal, the problem was presented from the perspective of institutional theory, which has a long tradition of explaining processes of institutional change in the social sciences.