Introduction: the European Union beyond the polycrisis? Integration and politicization in an age of shifting cleavages

Over the past decade, the EU has faced multiple crises. In the introduction to this collection, we argue that this ‘polycrisis’ is fracturing the European political system across multiple, simultaneous rifts, thereby creating a ‘polycleavage’. As a consequence, the EU is caught in a ‘politics trap’. Similar to other decision traps, this multi-level politics trap is dysfunctional, but difficult to escape altogether. The contributions to this...