Autonomy is the “lifeline” of bureaucratic organizations. How do bureaucratic organizations achieve autonomy against the background of environmental change? Current academic research pays insufficient attention to the behavioral logic of bureaucratic organizations in acquiring and maintaining autonomy through formal behavior, making it difficult to follow changes in Chinese governance. When informal behavior is limited and the long-standing desire for autonomy remains strong, is it possible for bureaucratic organizations to obtain and maintain their autonomy through formal behavior? This is a new issue that has not yet been considered by existing theories, thus a more targeted interpretation is needed. Based on a case study of a rural revitalization department in city A, this study uses participatory observations, in-depth interviews, and text analysis methods to answer the above question.

We find that, after the restructuring of the Poverty Alleviation Office into the Rural Revitalization Bureau to align with national strategy, the organization was transformed from an implicit disciplinary organization to a business-oriented organization, resulting in fragile autonomy and difficulties matching its governance capacity with its governance objectives. In order to resolve this dilemma, the Rural Revitalization Bureau broke through the conventional behavioral paradigm. By fully and reasonably utilizing rule-based functional contracting, performance linkages, and risk sharing, it completed the “reproduction of roles” and reverted back to a latent disciplinary bureaucratic organization. Not only was its autonomy restored but the effectiveness of implementing rural revitalization strategies in localized contexts was enhanced. Based on this, this article constructs an “institution for autonomy” theory to understand “Chinese-style relations” between organizations and the environment, that is, hierarchical organizations that fully and reasonably use rules to maintain and enhance autonomy based on formal behavior, forming an organizational operational mechanism of “autonomy as the body, and rules as the means.”

The contribution of this article lies in its bridging of a theoretical dialogue between organizations and the environment, its exploration of new sources of institutional resilience in China, and its expansion of space to interpret political theory. On the one hand, the policy implications call for adhering to the bottom line and matching the name with the reality. In order to effectively align the progressive and precise nature of strategic governance while also adhering to the bottom line to experience large-scale poverty reduction, it is recommended that the central government entrust the agricultural and rural departments with responsibility for implementing an integrative rural revitalization strategy and for becoming a well-known and practical disciplinary organization to better coordinate the work of “agriculture, rural areas, and farmers” centered on rural revitalization. On the other hand, a deliberative assessment mechanism, led by the party committees at all levels and with joint participation by various departments, should be established to fully leverage the unique advantages of China's deliberative governance. Under the deliberative assessment mechanism, the opinions of the agricultural and rural departments are not the final result; they must be reviewed by the deliberative assessment team before reaching a final conclusion. In addition to coordinating departmental relationships to effectively promote implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the progressive and adaptive nature of Chinese strategic governance and the evolution of national governance institutional logic demonstrate the distinct advantages of Chinese-style relationships between bureaucratic organizations and the environment.