Carleton Convo with Andrew Little ’06 | April 3, 2026

Carleton’s convocation series returned for spring term with Andrew Little ’06, associate professor of political science at University of California–Berkeley, whose address is titled, “The Case Against Pessimism About Democracy.” He spoke at Carleton on Friday, April 3, from 10:50 to 11:50 a.m. in Skinner Chapel. Little’s research often focuses on how beliefs and biases about the political world affect the functioning of democracy. His work consists of modeling motivated reasoning (wanting to believe certain things are true), selection neglect (not understanding the biases in observed information), and making simplifying assumptions. Little’s address will also include discussions of the Varieties of Democracy (V-DEM) project, a common measure of democracy across countries used in political science. Little’s work has been published in leading political science and economics journals, including the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, and the Economic Journal. His work has also been featured in The Washington Post, The Economist, and The New York Times, among others. Little also serves as an editor of The American Journal of Political Science. Prior to his professorship at Berkley, Little received his BA from Carleton, his PhD from NYU, and taught at Cornell.  Learn more about Carleton Convos at go.carleton.edu/convocations