1994--A Year of Hot Spots and Fragmenting Countries : Nations: Is the cycle of the spread of democracy around the globe just about over? Can these new governments fulfill their citizens’ expectations?

Fasten your seat belts, folks, because 1994 is here. In contrast to the often euphoric five years since the onset of global change, 1994 could well be the bloodiest and most frustrating period of the post-Cold War world.

It will have redeeming moments--particularly as the Middle East and South Africa implement peace pacts this spring. Indeed, from history’s perspective, the mid-1990s are likely to be regarded as critical in shaping a new epoch.

Yet from the short-term perspective of those living through it, 1994 will often feel hellacious, as a host of flash points from central Africa to Central Asia implode, as the scramble for the deadliest weapons accelerates and as even states experiencing positive change go through rough, sorting-out periods.

The year will have its share of sexy headline grabbers. Washington is already speculating, for example, about whether North Korea’s nuclear potential will be for Bill Clinton what Cuba’s missile crisis was to John F. Kennedy--though Pyongyang has more to gain from mediation, including aid, than confrontation.

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping will defy the odds if he survives the year. His passing offers a pretext for change, or new demands for it, in the world’s last empire--even though China’s course, post-Deng, appears charted.

Several 1993 holdovers offer hopeful prospects--even if based more on wishful thinking than reality. New scuttlebutt suggests Iraq’s Saddam Hussein survived a roadside bombing during a trip last fall known only to his inner circle.

And, of course, the year will have its “surprises”--though many are already predictable. In Algeria, Muslim resistance since the 1992 military coup is becoming the kind of landmark for the broader Islamic movement that the legendary battle of Algiers was to Third World independence three decades ago.

And upheaval seems unavoidable in Zaire, the massive country in the belly of Africa where the currency has fallen against the dollar--from 300 to $1, in 1990, to more than 100 million to $1 last month. Human-rights abuses are reportedly the worst since the 1960s civil war.

But rather than specific hot spots, 1994’s place in history is likely to be judged by overall progress on democracy--a trend now in serious trouble. “The cycle’s about run out,” Joe Ryan of Freedom House, a human-rights monitoring group, reflected on the eve of 1994.

From the Andes to the Atlas mountains, from Siberia’s frozen tundra to India’s steamy slums, the basic problem is that democracy is failing to penetrate deep enough into either state apparatus or societies to survive myriad challenges. Threats will play out on several fronts.

The first is in elections, where the results of change are likely to be increasingly uneven--often bringing to power either the undesirable or the unexpected, and altering the agenda. The rise of ultra-nationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky in Russia’s parliamentary elections last month, for example, ensures that states on the periphery--from Latvia in the Baltics to Kazakhstan in Central Asia--will increasingly be flash points in 1994.

Zhirinovsky has threatened trade restrictions and even military intervention in response to real or alleged problems of Russian minorities in former Soviet republics--an issue Boris N. Yeltsin will have to address to preempt his powerful rival. Yet, not surprisingly, the new states are installing their own officials and agendas, unsettling local Russians.

On the other end of the spectrum is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, a socialist planning to run for president of Brazil in 1994--and favored 2 to 1 over his nearest rival in recent polls.

As in many new democracies, Brazilians’ faith in pluralism is being tested by painful economic reforms, crime and corruption. In Latin America, only Chile has successfully mixed market economics with social policies to reduce poverty.

Brazil’s annual inflation last year hit 2,500%, as free markets helped widen the already enormous gap between rich and poor. A corruption scandal forced Brazil’s democratically elected president to resign in 1992, while, in 1993, congress launched investigations into corruption charges against dozens of deputies, governors and former government ministers.

Both Zhirinovsky and Lula are symbols of broader challenges in young democracies unable to meet expectations of newly empowered constituents. Their rise is due as much to fear as to personal appeal. But either way, they are unlikely to be lone examples by the end of 1994.

Second, demands for greater participation will often contribute as much to dismembering states as to changing them within--again, in part, because democracy hasn’t penetrated deeply enough or calmed nationalist insecurities.

But disintegration is less likely to be along neat, predetermined borders--as when the 15 Soviet republics became 15 independent states in 1991. Redrawing the world map will often be messier, opening up whole new conflicts--and perhaps making Bosnia a model for the 1990s as Lebanon was to the 1980s.

Problems are not limited to developing countries. Canada’s Quebec question, for example, may be settled by 1994 elections. If the separatist Parti Quebecois wins, as polls suggest, a vote on secession is expected to follow. The party has already set June 24, 1995 for independence.

That’s the easy part. Quebec then has to deal with native Americans--and whether they, too, gain independence. Since the late ‘80s, a growing native-rights movement has had both peaceful and bloody confrontations with Quebec authorities. Canada has already agreed to create a self-governed Inuit homeland, called Nunavut, in 1999.

Third, countries from North Africa to Southeast Asia, attempting to forestall greater participation, will also be bigger flash points in 1994. Besides Algeria, crises are already looming in states from Egypt to Tajikistan, where Islam appears to be a popular alternative but governments are balking rather than accommodating strong public sentiments.

Finally, democracy’s progress is affected by peace in unusual ways. Precedents in 1993, between Palestinians and Israelis and between South Africa’s blacks and whites, bode well this year in other areas of prolonged conflict. Barring unexpected events--such as death of a major player or tangential crises--Israeli pacts with Syria and Jordan are likely in 1994.

Yet peace opens up as many issues as it resolves. Ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, for example, eliminates the defining issue for several Arab leaders. Rather than stability, peace may instead usher in greater short-term instability--as an opposition sees change is possible and wants more of it. So even in lands of peace and hope, the ride may get rough.

But the democracy movement isn’t being derailed. Too many people now know their rights to allow a long-term reversal. The biggest challenge of the year will thus be helping democracy overcome the obstacles and take permanent hold--so 1995 will be better.