Abstract: Rural governance is an important part of China's national governance, and also the key to the promote the smooth implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. Since the reform and opening up for more than 40 years, with the acceleration of new industrialization and urbanization process, rural governance was facing many difficulties, showing a tendency of involution which was mainly reflected in the separation of supply and demand of basic-level public services, the weakness of rural endogenous foundation, and the prominent administrative trend of village level organizations. Under the background of rural revitalization strategy,as a new expression of rural sages in the context of modernization, new rural sages gradually became one of the important subjects of rural governance. With its unique appeal, new rural sages played an irreplaceable role in innovating the supply mode of rural public services, strengthening the endogenous basis of rural, and assisting villagers' autonomy, so as to provide useful reference for rural governance to get out of the dilemma of involution and realize the modernization of rural governance system and governance capacity.

Key words: rural governance, involution, new rural sages