Abstract: The national strategy of rural revitalization has brought many resources into the countryside, which has led the grass-roots governments to the shift from the “constrained autonomy” to the “dependent autonomy”. Against this background, “managing politics” becomes a new trend of township government behavior. An investigation of the Homestay Project of X Village in Hunan Province shows that the“managing politics”in operation of the project is essentially a replacement of market logic by political logic; in order to achieve the logic shift, the township government, by means of strategic publicity, mobilized plural township subjects to offer ideas and work together for common prosperity, leading to somewhat “political profit sharing order” to obtain political achievements and related resources.To be specific, the formation of “managing politics” stems from the strengthened constraints on township governments,enhanced institutional incentives and the expanding policy space; however, it also brought about potential risks: the non-sustainability of “political profit sharing order”, the disorder of local agency and the negative externality of featured projects. The “managing politics” of township governments in effect sparks the theoretical research on “political operators of management” and “managing villages” under the framework of state and social relations on the one hand, but poses a problem to township governments on how to give full play to its role and function in practice.

Key words: rural revitalization, managing politics, project system, autonomy of township governments