Abstract: since entering the new century，the poverty alleviation work taking village as the basic unit has been closely related to the rural governance. The poverty alleviation analysis of the micro level of the village has not only focused on the contents and mechanisms of poverty alleviation work，but also on the changes of rural society. In a village，the social relationship structure，power structure，social differentiation and information transmission，elite capture，the self—interest needs of village cadres and lack of collective action have become important reasons of poverty alleviation work target deviation. Poverty alleviation project target deviation will result in the poverty alleviation work involution，and poverty alleviation involution not only affects the public welfare and legitimacy of poverty alleviation projects，but also leads to the decrease of the poor’s confidence to the government，the more likely will lead to the growing gap between the rich and the poor and reproduce of social inequality structure. To reverse this situation，we need not only to change the macro structure of the work，to eliminate the threshold and the system not conducive to the poor，but also to pay more attention to the interaction between the poor alleviation and the local community，to the characteristics of the local community，to the objective reality of the differentiation of farmers，and to the psychological vulnerability of the poor，and to the cultivation of collective action.

Key words: poverty alleviation project, target deviation, involution, elite capture