Transformation is political

Many change programmes treat politics as something to be carefully overcome so that the real work of designing and implementing change can proceed. Transformation research suggests that this is the wrong orientation. Politics is not an obstacle to transformation but rather a medium through which transformation often occurs.

This article explains why transformation is always embedded in political processes, and what that means for how change can be effectively supported.

Power shapes transformation

Transformation is not a neutral process. Different actors hold different visions of what a transformed system should look like, and those differences reflect positions within existing arrangements of power.

A large agribusiness and a smallholder farmer do not simply hold different preferences about the future of a food system. They occupy different positions within it, with different capacities to shape it. Incumbent power holders tend to seek change that sustains or extends the status quo. Those with the least power may hold a fundamentally different vision. 

Approaches to change that focus on technical design or policy improvement while leaving existing power relations unexamined are unlikely to produce fundamental shifts, and may simply reinforce current patterns. Recognising whose transformation is being pursued – and whose is not – is a necessary part of any serious effort to support change.

Conflict as productive

Working with these different framings directly is not only necessary, but can often be rewarding. One of the more counter-intuitive findings from transformation research, for example, is that conflict and resistance are not problems to be avoided. They can be productive forces and necessary features of the process through which deeper change occurs.

The ACKnowl-EJ coalition argues that resistance to existing structures of power is key to creating genuine alternatives. Conflict, in this framing, helps surface root issues rather than allowing them to be managed or deferred. The 2017 El Salvador mining ban illustrates the point. What began as local opposition to a gold mine, marked by legal challenge and the deaths of anti-mining activists, eventually generated a national movement and produced the world's first national ban on mining. The transformation was not achieved by avoiding conflict but by working through it. Such work is never over, however – El Salvador's mining ban was overturned in 2024 following a change in political leadership, for example.

Coalitions across difference

Transformation rarely emerges from a single actor or a uniform movement. Research on renewable energy transitions in China, India, Brazil and South Africa points to a different pattern: transformation as an emergent property of diverse coalitions in which different actors play different roles.

Some act as rebels pushing for radical change and making the scale of the problem visible. Others act as reformers, working with institutions to shift what is possible. Organisers build the coalitions that sustain change over time. Helpers deliver direct support, keeping the human stakes in view. No single actor has the resources to bring about systemic change alone, and these roles are all necessary. 

These coalitions do not require shared motives. The expansion of renewable energy in China, India, Brazil and South Africa, for example, emerged largely from interests in energy security and economic development with climate benefit as a co-benefit. So transformation can draw on a wide constituency. The task, however, is to find alignments of interest, not to achieve ideological agreement.

Three implications for practice

The political nature of transformations carries three important implications for your practice when you are working on a transformation initiative:

1. Map power explicitly. Identify who holds power in the system, whose interests current arrangements serve, and whose vision of transformation is being centred.

2. Treat resistance as useful information. Resistance from incumbent power-holders and from those with the least power both signal something real about what is at stake. Neither should be dismissed.

3. Build broad coalitions. Look for alignments of interest across actors with different motives. A coalition that includes rebels, reformers, organisers and helpers – each working on different parts of the system – is more likely to generate the breadth of change transformation requires.

Transformation changes not just what a system produces but who benefits from it and who shapes it. That is what makes it political and what makes political engagement, including conflict, a necessary part of transformative practice rather than a difficulty to manage.

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Prof Ioan Fazey | Department of Environment and Geography, University of York

Want to explore this further? The concepts introduced here are drawn from our guide Transformation: An introductory guide to fundamental change for researchers and change makers in a world of crises. The full guide covers what to transform towards, through what means, and whose perspectives shape the process.

AI use statement: this article was developed from the source report by the authors. AI tools were used to support editing and to suggest structure. The analysis, framing and content are drawn directly from the report and reflect the authors' own judgement throughout.