This paper presents the stabilization analysis for a class of nonlinear systems that are represented by a Takagi and Sugeno (TS) discrete fuzzy model (Takagi and Sugeno IEEE Trans. Systems Man Cybern. 15(1)(1985)116). The main result given here concerns their stabilization using new control laws and new nonquadratic Lyapunov functions. New relaxed conditions and linear matrix inequality-based design are proposed that allow outperforming previous results found in the literature. Two examples are also provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the approaches. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.