Agroecology has a fundamentally political dimension. It is based on an aspiration of producers and citizens to self-organize for sustainability and social justice. This review analyzes the enabling and disabling conditions that shape agroecology transformations and the ability of communities to self-organize. It develops the notion of ‘domains of transformation’ as overlapping and interconnected interfaces between agroecology and the incumbent dominant regime. We present six critical domains that are important in agroecological transformations: access to natural ecosystems; knowledge and culture; systems of exchange; networks; discourse; and gender and equity. The article focuses on the dynamics of power and governance, arguing that a shift from top down technocratic approaches to bottom up forms of governance based on community-self organization has the most potential for enabling transformation.