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Following dramatic changes in the international security environment, civil defence has reemerged as a central priority of governments, which requires collaboration among many stakeholders across sectors and levels of authority. Conditions for achieving such collaboration is a long-standing topic in different literatures, yet this is still a nascent topic in the study of civil defence and preparedness. In an effort to bridge these literatures, this paper proposes an interdisciplinary lens to advance insights regarding the merits and drawbacks of collaborative governance in the civil defence domain. We discuss how sector-specific developments, as well as more general societal changes towards complexity, interdependency, and institutional fragmentation, have resulted in increased pressure on collaborative solutions. We elaborate on four theoretical conjectures focusing on determinants, diminishing returns, institutional fit, and top-down dynamics. We end with suggestions for methodological innovations, including ways to collect and analyze data about collaboration and its outcomes.