The liberalization of the economy and State reforms of the nineties initially seemed to have left industrial nationalism -- the framework adopted by post-war Brazilian political economy -- to the annals of history. However, this perspective has undergone a certain rebirth since the beginning of the nineties. This paper seeks an understanding of this rebirth of technological and industrial neo-nationalism within highly autonomous regulatory agencies whose principal mission is the defense of competition and the consumer. My conclusions suggest that the conditions for this reemergence are linked to the way in which these agencies have maintained the technical elites from governmental institutions who were at the forefront of the developmentalist project, in conjunction with the increased regionalization of demands that has been the result of pressures for a new federative pact deriving from conditions of crisis.
developmentalism; State reform; regulatory agencies; neo-nationalism; development funds
