Buffeted by the difficulties they experienced in 1998, ever fewer people in the post-Soviet states expect their situation to be significantly better in 1999. Indeed, polls taken across the region suggest that many there would now agree with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma who said last week that there is no reason to think that 1999 will be any easier for his country than 1998 was.

This shift from optimism to pessimism is now so widespread that it constitutes a veritable revolution of falling expectations, one that may have just as many serious political and economic consequences as the more familiar revolution of rising expectations has had elsewhere.

Revolutions of rising expectations occur when people begin to expect more owing to improvements in their lives. And such optimistic attitudes sometimes lead them to make demands that neither the economic nor the political system is able to meet. That frequently results in a crisis that can lead either to the transformation of these systems or to the demobilization of the groups making such demands. But in either case, optimism that goes beyond the capacity of the country to cope can create instability.

A revolution of falling expectations--such as the one that appears to be starting in some post-Soviet states--can be equally destabilizing but in very different and unexpected ways. Some observers have suggested that declining expectations by leaders and peoples in the post-Soviet states not only represent a new form of realism on the part of both but also give elites in these countries new opportunities to move toward democracy and the free market.

Certainly, popular and political recognition of the difficulties involved in the transition from communism is a more realistic stance than the often starry-eyed optimism that characterized the immediate post-communist period and that Western governments in fact promoted. And it is obviously true that leaders have more room to maneuver when they are not under pressure from populations that expect and even demand that tomorrow be better than today.

At the same time, there are three compelling reasons why such a view of what has been called "the new realism" in these countries is likely too rosy and why the revolution of falling expectations taking place there may have some potentially frightening consequences.

First, populations that believe that tomorrow will not be better than today and may even be worse have few reasons to seek leadership from political or economic elites. Not only does that make it more difficult for such elites to generate the kind of authority they need to make changes for the better, but it also means that these elites may be tempted to defend their own interests by force or at the expense of those of the population as a whole.

Second, when senior political leaders come to share the pessimism of the population, they are unlikely to be willing or able to take the risks necessary to help their countries escape from current difficulties. And that unwillingness is likely in many cases to reinforce the pessimism of the population and the other problems such pessimism entails.

And third, when both populations and their leaders become so pessimistic, the former are likely to be ever more willing to listen to those who would blame someone for their problems, and the latter are likely to be ever more willing to participate in such scapegoating. That helps explain the rise of anti-Semitism and growing antagonism toward those viewed as outsiders -- such as the North Caucasians in Russia -- in several of these countries. It also helps explain why ever more people and governments in these states are becoming more hostile to the West.

Such attitudes and the actions prompted by them will make it more difficult for these countries to move toward democracy and the free market or to integrate into the international community.

But while revolutions of rising expectations do not last forever, neither do revolutions of falling expectations. Both can end either when conditions finally begin to improve or, more often, when leaders seek to spread their own optimism to the population of their countries.

The role of leaders may be particularly important. To paraphrase U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, who came to office in the depths of the Great Depression, the only thing to be pessimistic about in this region is the spread of pessimism to so many.

UKRAINIAN CABINET TO DRAW UP ADMINISTRATION REFORM DECREE. Ukrainian Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko has ordered his cabinet to prepare by 6 January a draft decree that would cut the number of ministries and increase the government's efficiency, AP and ITAR-TASS reported on 4 January. Pustovoytenko said the planned cuts may affect 30 percent of government officials. The cabinet's step is seen as a response to the IMF's criticism of Ukraine's bureaucratic system of government. Radical administrative reform is an IMF requirement for the resumption of a suspended $2.2 billion loan. JM

Buffeted by the difficulties they experienced in 1998, ever fewer people in the post-Soviet states expect their situation to be significantly better in 1999. Indeed, polls taken across the region suggest that many there would now agree with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma who said last week that there is no reason to think that 1999 will be any easier for his country than 1998 was.

This shift from optimism to pessimism is now so widespread that it constitutes a veritable revolution of falling expectations, one that may have just as many serious political and economic consequences as the more familiar revolution of rising expectations has had elsewhere.

Revolutions of rising expectations occur when people begin to expect more owing to improvements in their lives. And such optimistic attitudes sometimes lead them to make demands that neither the economic nor the political system is able to meet. That frequently results in a crisis that can lead either to the transformation of these systems or to the demobilization of the groups making such demands. But in either case, optimism that goes beyond the capacity of the country to cope can create instability.

A revolution of falling expectations--such as the one that appears to be starting in some post-Soviet states--can be equally destabilizing but in very different and unexpected ways. Some observers have suggested that declining expectations by leaders and peoples in the post-Soviet states not only represent a new form of realism on the part of both but also give elites in these countries new opportunities to move toward democracy and the free market.

Certainly, popular and political recognition of the difficulties involved in the transition from communism is a more realistic stance than the often starry-eyed optimism that characterized the immediate post-communist period and that Western governments in fact promoted. And it is obviously true that leaders have more room to maneuver when they are not under pressure from populations that expect and even demand that tomorrow be better than today.

At the same time, there are three compelling reasons why such a view of what has been called "the new realism" in these countries is likely too rosy and why the revolution of falling expectations taking place there may have some potentially frightening consequences.

First, populations that believe that tomorrow will not be better than today and may even be worse have few reasons to seek leadership from political or economic elites. Not only does that make it more difficult for such elites to generate the kind of authority they need to make changes for the better, but it also means that these elites may be tempted to defend their own interests by force or at the expense of those of the population as a whole.

Second, when senior political leaders come to share the pessimism of the population, they are unlikely to be willing or able to take the risks necessary to help their countries escape from current difficulties. And that unwillingness is likely in many cases to reinforce the pessimism of the population and the other problems such pessimism entails.

And third, when both populations and their leaders become so pessimistic, the former are likely to be ever more willing to listen to those who would blame someone for their problems, and the latter are likely to be ever more willing to participate in such scapegoating. That helps explain the rise of anti-Semitism and growing antagonism toward those viewed as outsiders -- such as the North Caucasians in Russia -- in several of these countries. It also helps explain why ever more people and governments in these states are becoming more hostile to the West.

Such attitudes and the actions prompted by them will make it more difficult for these countries to move toward democracy and the free market or to integrate into the international community.

But while revolutions of rising expectations do not last forever, neither do revolutions of falling expectations. Both can end either when conditions finally begin to improve or, more often, when leaders seek to spread their own optimism to the population of their countries.

The role of leaders may be particularly important. To paraphrase U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, who came to office in the depths of the Great Depression, the only thing to be pessimistic about in this region is the spread of pessimism to so many.