Like many other Latin American business communities, Brazilian business leaders sharply increased their political mobilization in the 1980s. They were responding to the context of economic and policymaking uncertainty that emerged in the New Republic (1985), the regime following the end of military rule. Two broad concerns lay at the heart of their mobilizing efforts. First, business leaders had come to believe that Brazil needed a new strategic program for economic development. Import substitution industrialization was widely perceived as an exhausted model. Thus, a number of business leaders believed it was necessaty to begin a dialogue about the country’s developmental priorities. These business leaders, moreover, hoped to reverse the tendency under the Ernest0 Geisel administration (1964–85) to exclude business groups from policy making.