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Are green transformations too urgent, deep and pervasive to be reliably achieved by democratic means? As suggested by the iconically influential environmentalist James Lovelock, perhaps ‘it may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while’(Hickman, 2010). Indeed, the main European Commission news website recently queried whether democracy is actually an ‘enemy of nature?’(Euractive, 2010). As formally structured procedure,‘democracy’is often caricatured as an obstructive or dispensable ‘luxury’(Haan and Sierman, 1996). However, perhaps history teaches instead that the only sure way to achieve any kind of progressive social transformation is through unruly democratic struggle. These are the questions on which this chapter will focus.

In short, the argument here will lead to a general heuristic distinction between two ideal-typical forms of radical social change. On one hand, are ‘transitions’: managed under orderly control, through incumbent structures according to tightly disciplined knowledges, often emphasizing technological innovation, towards some particular known (presumptively shared) end. On the other hand, are ‘transformations’, involving more diverse, emergent and unruly political alignments, more about social innovations, challenging incumbent structures, subject to incommensurable knowledges and pursuing contending (even unknown) ends. By reference to emancipatory struggles by excluded classes, ethnicities, slaves, workers, colonies, women, young people and diverse sexualities, the chapter will argue that it is repeatedly the latter that achieves the most profound (often rapid) radically progressive social …