On the edge of his seat: Stephen Breyer

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Burkina Faso is a small, landlocked West African country, but this week's military coup has big implications. Across the region, battles against jihadism aren't going well and governments being overthrown just makes things easier for the insurgents. And the capital of America used to be Philadelphia. I still get Nigeria's wrong. It used to be Lagos, but now it's Abuja. Now we'll all have to learn a new one. Indonesia's capital is moving, and as elsewhere, that brings problems along with opportunities. But first, Justice Stephen Breyer is expected to formally announce his retirement from America's Supreme Court later today. A member of the court's liberal wing, the 83 year old justice was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

I asked the Senate to consider and to promptly confirm the nomination of Judge Stephen Breyer as the 108th justice of the Supreme Court.

His confirmation hearings were presided over by then Senator Joseph Biden.

The hearing will come to order while we're waiting.

Now President Biden will have the opportunity to be the first Democrat since 2010 to put a justice on the court. In one sense, his nomination will change little. A liberal will replace a liberal. But on the campaign trail, he promised to nominate a black woman. For the first time ever, I committed.

That if I'm elected president and have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I'll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It's required.

Yesterday, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed that his plans remained unchanged.

The president has stated and reiterated his.

Commitment to nominating a black woman to.

The Supreme Court and certainly stands by that.

But with midterm elections looming, Mr. Biden is working against the clock.

In 2016, the Democrats lost an epic Machiavellian political struggle over the vacancy that was created when Justice Antonin Scalia died.

Stephen Mazey is our Supreme Court correspondent.

Within hours of Justice Scalia's death, the Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Republican held Senate would leave the seat of open rather than let President Barack Obama fill it. He stayed true to his word and his caucus went right along with the plan. Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a widely respected moderate judge nominee whose unmatched experience and.

Integrity have earned him the respect and admiration of both parties.

Chief Judge Merrick Garland Judge Garland grew up in McConnell. Stonewalt did not even give Garland a hearing, much less a vote.

And do you think that that figured into Mr. Breyer's decision to step down? Now?

There's no doubt many liberals had been calling on him to retire in order to give Biden a chance to name his successor. While that's a political possibility, the pressure began almost as soon as Biden was sworn in. With a 5050 Senate there is no wiggle room. On one hand, Breyer is very smart. He knows all this. He was very despondent when his dear friend and fellow octogenarian Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September of 2020. He saw RBG's seat turn over to her jurisprudential inverse Justice Amy Coney Barrett. He knows the stakes. On the other hand, Breyer has been insisting in a Harvard Law School lecture that became a short book last year, that the Supreme Court is not a political institution and it must be preserved from reforms and characterizations that paint it in a political and therefore illegitimate light. He'd like to continue on the bench, I think, but it seems Breyer has seen enough. He is announcing five months before the end of the term, presumably to give Biden and Senate Democrats enough time to ensure his seat is filled by a like minded jurist before Republicans take the gavel in the Senate chamber again, something that polling suggests is quite likely after the autumn midterm elections.

And who do you think will be most likely to to replace in we have some hints, I guess.

Yes, we've had more than hints. The field is fairly narrow because Biden has pledged to nominate the Supreme Court's first black woman. The leading candidate is Ketanji Brown Jackson. She's 51. She clerked for Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court. Biden promoted her last year from the D.C. district Court to the powerful D.C. circuit Court of Appeals. She has dual degrees from Harvard and an eclectic cv. She has been, among other things, a federal public defender when judges more often have prosecutorial experience. A Decade ago, she helped revise sentencing guidelines that had disproportionately affected African Americans. This job and the injustice it concerned was not an abstraction for her. When she was a teenager, her uncle was sentenced to life in prison for a minor drug crime under a so called three strikes rule. He was granted clemency 30 years later.

And who else? Who are the other contenders?

There is another strong contender, Leondra Kruger. She's younger, which is an asset. At 45, she'd be the youngest Supreme Court justice among those currently serving. She has Ivy League degrees too, from Harvard and Yale. She clerked on the Supreme Court. She worked in the Solicitor General's office under Obama and argued 12 cases at the Supreme Court. She was dynamite in these hearings, incredibly poised and polished, even when she was fighting losing battles. And all of the nine justices had their knives out for her. She's currently a judge on the State Supreme Court of California. There are a handful of other 40 something federal judges who might be chosen for Breyer's seat, but Judges Jackson and Krueger are far and away the favorites.

And what about the confirmation end of things? How likely that any of these women would be confirmed if nominated?

Well, it seems the Democrats at present do have the votes. All they need is a majority. And when Judge Jackson was confirmed to the Appeals court last year, three Republicans joined Democrats to vote for her. And this is one of those rare times when Democrats can thank none other than Mitch McConnell for the present rules. He blew up the Senate filibuster for supreme court confirmations in 2017 in order to get Neil Gorsuch on the bench. The McConnell rule holds and the Democrats bear. Senate majority may be just enough if the party can hold together as well in this instance as it has for Biden's many lower court nominations.

And what about the ideological makeup of the Court? What do you think all of this.

Means for the Court going forward, however quickly? Mr. Biden gets a successor confirmed, and whoever she turns out to be, the Court's direction will not change in the short or medium term. There will still be twice as many conservatives as liberals. Abortion rights appear to be endangered. Gun rights are on the upswing. Affirmative actions days are probably numbered, at least in the near term. The next justice will probably find herself dissenting early and often.

And what about for soon to be former Justice Breyer? What do you think his legacy will be? Where? Where will he end up in the history books?

Justice Breyer has been a stalwart but pragmatic liberal justice who believed that judges should look beyond a law's text to its purposes and to its consequences. His pragmatic approach was really about rolling up our sleeves and figuring out together as consequences, common citizens how to work out our differences. This attitude inspired his majority opinions upholding abortion rights, delineating the limits of presidential power, and addressing the delicate matter of religion in the public square. Everyone likes to make fun of Breyer's lengthy and almost stream of consciousness, hypothetical questions and oral arguments. But he was also a delightful questioner. He was funny, he was at once professorial and down to earth. One thing that preoccupies Justice Breyer is the stability of democracy and the rule of law. The idea that people will trust the system and abide by its rules, even when they disagree with them, because they feel represented in and by their institutions. It's helpful to a country to have a system where people follow laws, where people in fact, follow laws interpreted by.

Judges and, and may do that even.

When the judges are wrong.

So I think that's the goal. Breyer wants that as his legacy, but by retiring at this time, he seems to be telling us that public faith in the judiciary might be threatened if the court is not protected from drifting even further to the right.

Thanks very much for your time, Stephen.

Thanks, Jason.

This week in Burkina Faso, the latest overthrow of a West African government. As with almost every coup, it started with confusion, then gunfire, then a tense silence. By daybreak on Monday, bullet riddled and blood spattered presidential vehicles were visible in the streets. On state television, a young army captain flanked by gun toting heavies declared that the rule of President Rock Cabore was over. In his place, a military government that says it's committed to defending Burkina Faso from the scourge of West African jihadists.

The ousting of Burkina Faso's President Rock Cabore is pretty worrying, but frankly, it's not unexpected.

Kinley Salmon is our Africa correspondent and is based in Senegal.

This is the fourth coup in West Africa in just the last 17 months. There have been two in neighbouring Mali, for example, and it's Burkina Faso's eighth successful coup since gaining independence. Even more immediately, just two weeks ago, the government arrested eight soldiers for allegedly plotting some form of coup. And there's been kind of some tension bubbling for a while between Mr. Gwarri's government and the armed forces.

And you had mentioned that attempted coup when we spoke last about Mali. What is it that's led to that instability in Burkina Faso?

Well, it's most squarely about just the terrible security situation. Burkina Faso is a country of 21 million people, but about one and a half million of them have been pushed from their homes by an onslaught of jihadist attacks in just the last three years. So a very steep acceleration of displacement. About another 7,000 people have died in the fighting in the last three years. And then there have been some really devastating attacks that have spurred also protests in the capital. One was a slaughter last june of more than 100 people in a village called solhan in the north of the country. And then, perhaps even more directly precipitating this coup was a november attack in inatta, another northern town where jihadists killed about 50 gendarmes. And those gendarmes had, it seems, not received food for two weeks, at least, according to a report that they sent to their superiors. So that attack, in the sense that the security forces Were not really being properly supported by their civilian heads, Caused a lot of anger in military circles. And though there's been kind of boasts of improved military spending from the government, it does seem like little of that gear got to some of those frontline areas.

And so now that this coup has happened, how have the people of burkina Faso reacted to it?

So it's difficult, obviously, to speak for the whole country, but in the capital, ouagadougou, there was a clear sense of celebration. There was a festive atmosphere on the street the next day with, you know, hundreds, perhaps thousands of people coming out. This perhaps reflects a longer term sense of apathy with the democratic government that had been in place in 2018. A poll showed that support for military rule had climbed to about 50%, up from only 24% a few years earlier. And part of this is what the army's trying to tap into. They say they want to do more to protect the nation from this insecurity, and they claim that, you know, having the military run the shop Is the only way to achieve this. The argument goes, if you like, that having the military in charge will mean that money and kit needed to fight jihadists will actually get to the front lines and be less likely to be stolen.

And what's your take on that argument that having the military in charge will help with the jihadist problem?

Well, I think it's doubtful. The same argument that what was needed is military running the whole government Was made in recent coups in mali on multiple occasions. But there's just not much evidence that having soldiers run the government has improved security. In fact, some analysts in mali suggest that since the coups in 2020 and 2021, the Army's actually withdrawn even more than it had before from some embattled parts of the country. I think it's also clear to say that in the short run, this is pretty likely to help jihadists. This new military outfit in Burkina Faso will have its hands full trying to consolidate power in the capital. But even in the long run, coups often lead to more instability, more contestation of power, and even more coups. And so I'm sceptical that it will do much good in the medium term either.

So the environment then is actually, in the short term, as you say, more favorable for jihadists. What will happen if they do gain some ground while this is going on?

Well, this will be a real blow to the wider western backed campaign against jihadists that is happening in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. France has deployed about 5,100 soldiers to the Sahel, although its operations in Burkina Faso have been a bit more limited. But there's also a wide number of regional troops. There are some commanders from America. There are European commandos also operating in the region. And In Mali, the UN has 15,000 peacekeepers. This strategy more recently has shifted slowly from a very heavy military focus towards trying to get the local states themselves to return to troubled areas to provide services and ultimately to build functioning and accountable democracies. President Macron of France has talked about the need for the return of the state on many occasions. And this coup just really flies in the face of all of that, and it potentially opens the window for a longer term worry, which is of jihadists finding it easier to expand through Burkina Faso and take a hold in coastal countries such as Benin or Cote d', Ivoire, where we have already seen the number of attacks beginning to increase. But of course, France and its allies aren't the only foreign actors in the region.

Yes, when we spoke about Mali, one of the complicating factors there was the arrival of Russian mercenaries.

Yes, that's right. Russian influence has certainly been growing in the region alongside anti French sentiment. And that's been most obvious in Mali and in fact spilled over very recently into a disagreement with Danish forces who are working alongside the French. And the Malian government has actually asked them to leave the country. But we also see this growth of interest in Russia and now in Burkina Faso. Russian flags were seen in the hands of coup supporters this week. In the crowd celebrating the coup, various people on the ground talked about how they were inspired by Mali's defiance of France.

And what about more broadly and going forward? We do keep speaking about coups in this part of the world. Should we expect more well, the Sahel.

More generally is very unstable. And of course, you know, history tells us that coups tend to repeat over time, and particularly in West Africa. So it's hard to be confident that this is the last of the cycle of coups. And I think as long as jihadists remain on the march and the security situation remains dire, it's very difficult to rule out. What's clearer, I think, is that fighting the jihadist threat will require more than just force. There's clearly a need for some change. It's difficult to know in truth exactly what. But clearly better governance by these states and more cooperation between countries in the region is needed. So is a more consistent approach from their armed forces and better relations, frankly, between political elites and local armies, as well as their foreign backers. All of those need to work better together. But unfortunately, that kind of synergy, frankly, has never looked more elusive.

Thanks very much for joining us, Kinley.

Thanks for having me.

By a lot of measures, Indonesia is a big country. Add up its sprawling 17 and a half thousand islands and you get an area nearly as large as Mexico. And it's the most populous majority Muslim nation, 230 million or so, or among about 4/5. More than half of all Indonesians live on the island of Java, which accounts for less than 7% of the country's total land mass. One draw of Java is that that's where the center of government is, but not for much longer.

Jakarta is the current capital of Indonesia.

Hanavi OK writes about current affairs for the Economist.

It is traffic clogged, overcrowded and threatened by climate change. It is one of the fastest sinking cities in the world. As a result, the government is moving its capital from Jakarta over to the island of Borneo.

And so what city on Borneo will be the new capital then?

So it actually does not exist yet. It is a jungle clad area. The government has just picked it out and recently announced that it will be called Nusantara. It's a project that has been estimated to cost $32 billion. Indonesia's president has promised that it will be a zero emissions paradise where everyone can walk and bike around because everything will be very close by. And he also says that one of the aims of the new capital is to redistribute wealth, which is currently concentrated in the western urban areas.

And I guess it's not the first time a capital has been moved, but it's pretty rare in the modern era. Right?

So it's not that unusual, actually. I mean, we can go as far back as 1790 when President George Washington chose Washington, D.C. as the capital because it was a sort of bridge between northern and southern states. Australia, at the start of the 20th century changed its capital to Canberra because it was a sort of midway point between Melbourne and Sydney. Then Brazil replaced Rio de Janeiro with Brasilia in 1960, and even Nigeria relocated its capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991. In Myanmar, the capital has moved from Yangon to Naipitao. And right now, as Indonesia is planning its own relocation, there's Egypt, which is hoping to move its capital from Cairo to the yet unnamed new administrative capital because of the same reasons, overcrowding and overpopulation.

But it's no small task, Right? It might solve some problems, but surely also creates problems. Just pick up and move a capital.

Yes. So sometimes it doesn't actually resolve the problems it sets out to address. We've seen this in Nigeria. Lagos, the old capital, was historically dominated by the Yoruba, which are mainly Christian. And Abuja, the new capital, was supposed to serve as a neutral city to alleviate the sort of north, south divides that exist in the country, but it really hasn't. We've seen that the Hausa, the largest Islamic tribe, has benefited the most. And this is clear in the sort of Islamic imagery of a lot of public buildings, which really rankles Christians. So sometimes the problems that you seek to address aren't actually resolved. And when it comes to redistributing wealth, history also tells us to be wary. Brazil, with Brasilia, wanted to create a classless, egalitarian society where there were no informal settlements, no favelas, certainly no income inequality. But the United nations has called it one of the least equal cities in the world, and it's largely considered a failed experiment.

So with those cautionary tales in mind, then, how can Indonesia make its new capital a success?

Well, one of the things we've seen in the past, even with Egypt at the moment, is that sometimes it's not even accessible to the poor people it's supposed to help. So one thing that Indonesia can focus on is building affordable housing or finding ways to make the relocation easier, because another issue is actually convincing people to move to the new capital. This has been an issue in Myanmar's new capital of Naipe Thao, where There's eerily empty 20 lane highways and golf courses and luxury hotels, which, again, don't really seem to address the necessities of actual people who live in Myanmar. But another thing to note is that these things take a lot of time, even hundreds of years. So we've seen with Washington. When it was first announced that it was going to be the capital, it was kind of a joke. It was called a city plan without a city. I mean, even now it has detractors. So it takes time. But that's not to say that it will not be a success.

Thanks very much for joining us, Hannah.

Thank you, Jason, for having me.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and you can subscribe to the economist@examiner.com intelligenceoffer the link is in the show Notes. See you back here tomorrow.