A strong political science essay moves from a precise empirical or theoretical question through a literature review of the relevant scholarship, presents a falsifiable hypothesis or an arguable normative claim, supports the argument with appropriate evidence (case studies, large N quantitative data, formal models, or close textual analysis of canonical political theory), and closes with a reasoned answer to the original question, all in APSA Style Manual author date format. This hub gathers our political science essay examples, comparative politics case study essays, international relations theory walk throughs, American politics analytical essays, political theory close readings, public policy memos, AP US Government and Politics preparation, and senior and graduate seminar paper support across the four major subfields.
How political science students use this hub
Undergraduate political science majors take an introduction to the four subfields with American government, comparative politics, international relations and political theory, a research methods course covering qualitative case study design and basic quantitative methods, and a slate of subfield courses including Congress and the presidency, the judiciary and constitutional law, state and local government, public administration and public policy, comparative political institutions, comparative political economy, area studies in Europe Latin America East Asia the Middle East and Africa, international relations theory, international political economy, international security, international law and organizations, the history of political thought from Plato through the present, and contemporary normative theory. Honors and graduate students add advanced quantitative methods with regression maximum likelihood and causal inference, formal theory with game theory and rational choice, qualitative methods with process tracing and most similar most different system designs, and a senior or master of arts thesis on a focused empirical or theoretical question.
Our political science resources are organized around this curriculum with worked political science essays for major topics across all four subfields, case study walk throughs of representative cases, formal model walk throughs of canonical results, and a curated bank of paper topics organized by subfield methodology and region. High school students preparing for AP US Government and Politics and AP Comparative Government and Politics reach for our practice question packs, free response question model essays scored against the published College Board rubric, and the SCOTUS comparison essays that demonstrate the constitutional reasoning the rubric requires.
Writers on the political science desk hold at least a master of arts in political science or public policy with sixty two percent carrying an earned doctorate in a specific subfield. For short turnaround essays, case briefings and discussion board posts we recommend the homework help desk academic resources. For senior theses, master of arts theses, doctoral seminar papers and journal article drafts we recommend the intro to dissertation writing service homework help.
Comparative politics case studies and methodology
Comparative politics essays on this hub work through canonical questions in the subfield with appropriate case study designs. The most similar systems design pairs cases that share most relevant background conditions but diverge on the outcome of interest, isolating the variable that may explain the divergence. The most different systems design pairs cases that share the outcome but differ on most background conditions, isolating the variable that is common across the converging cases. Process tracing within a single case identifies the causal mechanism connecting hypothesized cause to observed outcome through close attention to the temporal sequence and the contextual evidence at each step.
Worked comparative politics essays on our shelf include the comparison of democratic transition trajectories in Spain Argentina and South Korea following the third wave democratization scholarship of Samuel Huntington and Adam Przeworski; the comparison of welfare state regimes in Sweden Germany and the United States following the Esping Andersen three worlds typology; the comparison of revolutionary outcomes in France Russia and China following the Theda Skocpol structural account in States and Social Revolutions; the comparison of post communist transition in Poland Russia and Belarus; and the comparison of contentious politics episodes following the McAdam Tarrow Tilly framework. Each essay states a research question, reviews the relevant comparative scholarship, presents a case selection rationale, develops the comparison through structured paired narratives, and closes with a reasoned answer to the question.
International relations theory and security studies
International relations theory content on this hub covers the major paradigms that any political science student is expected to recognize and apply. Realism is presented from Thucydides through Hobbes Morgenthau Waltz and Mearsheimer with attention to the structural realism and offensive realism distinctions and the worked applications to the origins of World War One, the Cold War, and the contemporary US China rivalry. Liberalism is presented from Kant through Keohane and Nye with attention to liberal institutionalism democratic peace theory and complex interdependence and the worked applications to the European Union, the Bretton Woods system, and the post 1989 international order.
Constructivism is presented from Wendt Finnemore and Katzenstein with attention to identity norms and the social construction of state interests and the worked applications to the human rights regime, the responsibility to protect, and the post Cold War European security identity. The English school is presented from Bull and Watson with attention to international society and the institutions of order. Marxist and world systems approaches are presented from Wallerstein and Cox with attention to the core periphery structure of the world economy and the worked applications to global inequality and to imperial intervention in the periphery.
Security studies content covers the canonical questions of the field with worked essays on nuclear deterrence theory following Schelling and Jervis, on civil war causation following Fearon and Laitin, on terrorism and counterinsurgency following Pape and Galula, on cyber conflict following Buchanan and Lin, and on the rising power versus established power dynamic following Allison's Thucydides trap formulation. International political economy content covers the canonical questions on trade theory following Stolper Samuelson and Heckscher Ohlin, on monetary regimes following Eichengreen and Frieden, on financial globalization following Helleiner, and on development politics following Acemoglu and Robinson.
American politics analytical essays and constitutional law
American politics content on this hub covers Congress with attention to the committee system, the procedural rules of the House and Senate, the leadership institutions, the budget process, the appropriations and authorization distinction, and the canonical Mayhew electoral connection account; the presidency with attention to the institutional development of the modern presidency, the unitary executive debate, the war powers, the administrative presidency, and the Neustadt persuasion power account; the judiciary with attention to the federal courts hierarchy, judicial review, the major doctrines of constitutional interpretation including originalism textualism and living constitutionalism, and the strategic accounts of judicial decision making following Epstein and Knight.
Constitutional law content covers the canonical Supreme Court cases that any political science student is expected to know with worked case briefs and analytical essays. The cases covered include Marbury versus Madison, McCulloch versus Maryland, Gibbons versus Ogden, Dred Scott versus Sandford, Plessy versus Ferguson, Lochner versus New York, Schenck versus the United States, Brown versus Board of Education, Mapp versus Ohio, Gideon versus Wainwright, Miranda versus Arizona, Griswold versus Connecticut, Roe versus Wade and the subsequent Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization, Regents of the University of California versus Bakke and the subsequent Students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard, Citizens United versus FEC, District of Columbia versus Heller and the subsequent Bruen, and Obergefell versus Hodges. Each case brief states the facts, the procedural posture, the question presented, the holding, the reasoning of the majority, the concurrences and dissents, and the case in subsequent doctrinal development.
State and local government, public administration and public policy content covers federalism, the intergovernmental relations system, state legislatures and governors, the urban politics scholarship from Dahl and Stone through the contemporary urban regime literature, public administration theory from Wilson and Weber through the new public management, public policy analysis with cost benefit analysis, multi criteria decision analysis, and the canonical policy process frameworks including the Kingdon multiple streams account, the Sabatier advocacy coalition framework and the Baumgartner and Jones punctuated equilibrium account.
Political theory close readings and the canon
Political theory content on this hub covers the canonical works that any political science student is expected to read and engage. Ancient political thought is presented through close readings of Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics, Cicero's De Officiis and the Stoic tradition. Medieval political thought is presented through Augustine's City of God, Aquinas on natural law, and the conciliarist tradition. Early modern political thought is presented through Machiavelli's Prince and Discourses on Livy, Hobbes's Leviathan, Locke's Two Treatises of Government, Rousseau's Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, the Federalist Papers in dialogue with the Anti Federalist response, and Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Nineteenth century political thought is presented through Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Mill's On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto and the Eighteenth Brumaire, and Nietzsche on master and slave morality. Twentieth century political thought is presented through Weber's Politics as a Vocation, Schmitt's Concept of the Political, Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism and Human Condition, Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty, Rawls's Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, Nozick's Anarchy State and Utopia, Habermas's Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Between Facts and Norms, and Foucault's Discipline and Punish and Society Must Be Defended. Contemporary political thought is presented through Sandel and the communitarian critique, Walzer on spheres of justice and just war, Sen and Nussbaum on the capabilities approach, and contemporary critical race theory and feminist political theory through Crenshaw Mills and Pateman.
AP US Government, AP Comparative Government, and policy memos
AP US Government and Politics support on this hub is aligned to the current College Board course and exam description. Free response model essays cover the concept application question, the quantitative analysis question, the SCOTUS comparison question and the argument essay, with each essay scored against the published rubric. Multiple choice practice question packs work the foundations of American democracy, interactions among branches, civil liberties and civil rights, American political ideologies and beliefs, and political participation units. AP Comparative Government and Politics support covers the six course countries, the conceptual analysis question, the country context question, the comparative analysis question and the argumentative essay against the published rubric.
Public policy memo support delivers the standard memo format with executive summary, problem statement, options analysis, recommendation and implementation considerations, written for an executive principal in a public agency or congressional office. Worked public policy memos on our shelf include a memo on the carbon pricing options for a state environmental agency, a memo on the policy options for opioid use disorder for a state health agency, a memo on the affordable housing options for a city council, a memo on the cybersecurity workforce options for a federal agency, and a memo on the long term care financing options for a state legislature.
Quantitative methods, formal theory and qualitative methods
Quantitative methods essays on this hub work through canonical political science applications of regression including ordinary least squares with appropriate diagnostics, logistic regression for binary outcomes, multinomial and ordinal logistic regression for categorical outcomes, count models including Poisson and negative binomial, survival analysis for the duration of regimes and conflict, and the basic causal inference toolkit including instrumental variables difference in differences regression discontinuity and synthetic control, all in Stata or R as the discipline standard. Formal theory essays present the canonical results of the rational choice and game theoretic tradition including the Downsian median voter theorem, the Arrow impossibility theorem, the Gibbard Satterthwaite theorem, the Riker theory of coalition formation, the Tsebelis veto players theory, and the canonical signaling and bargaining models from the international conflict and the legislative bargaining literatures.
Qualitative methods essays present the canonical case study designs including process tracing with attention to the bayesian update logic, structured focused comparison following the George and Bennett framework, and the most similar most different system designs from the comparative politics tradition. Mixed methods essays integrate large N quantitative analysis with focused case study work to identify mechanisms behind the statistical patterns. Field research methods including semi structured interviews focus groups and survey design are presented with attention to the ethical review and informed consent considerations any political science research project must navigate.
Senior thesis and graduate seminar papers
The senior thesis or graduate seminar paper is the dominant credit eligible deliverable for political science majors and graduate students. Our deliverables include a complete proposal with the research question, the relevant literature, the theoretical framework, the hypothesis or normative claim, the empirical strategy or textual selection, and the chapter outline; an annotated bibliography with at least twenty five sources from the relevant peer reviewed literature; a literature review chapter; body chapters that develop the argument through case studies, quantitative analysis, formal models or close textual analysis; and a conclusion that names what the thesis contributes to the field. Common credit eligible deliverables include a complete senior thesis of forty to ninety pages, a graduate seminar paper of twenty five to forty pages with a focused argument and at least thirty cited sources, a case study essay of fifteen to twenty pages, a public policy memo of ten to twenty pages with appendices, a SCOTUS case brief of three to five pages, and a book review for a journal section.
How we choose writers and reviewers
Political science writers on this hub hold at least a master of arts in political science public policy or a closely related social science with sixty two percent carrying an earned doctorate in a specific subfield. Roughly one in five have published at least one peer reviewed article in a journal indexed by the political science section of Web of Science or Scopus. Reviewers carry an earned doctorate and serve on a graduate program qualifying examination committee or have published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, World Politics, International Organization, International Security, Comparative Political Studies, the British Journal of Political Science or a top subfield journal. Every deliverable is audited twice. The first audit verifies factual accuracy of names dates events institutions and theoretical positions against authoritative reference works. The second audit verifies APSA Style Manual formatting conformity, citation accuracy against the cited sources, and the absence of factual errors about cases doctrines or canonical results.
Our author for this hub is Dr. Clara Bennett, PhD Behavioral and Social Sciences, Social Sciences and Business Editorial Lead, with cross domain coverage in psychology sociology political science and education and direct teaching experience in research design quantitative methods and policy analysis at the graduate level. Our reviewer is Dr. Henry Whitfield, PhD Comparative Literature and Writing Studies, Humanities Editorial Lead, with cross domain experience reviewing political theory work for textual fidelity and historical accuracy. Every section of this hub has been verified against the current APSA Style Manual for Political Science, the Oxford handbooks of the four political science subfields, the relevant United States Reports for Supreme Court cases, and the most recent College Board AP US Government and Politics and AP Comparative Government and Politics course and exam descriptions as of April 2026.
Reviews and ratings
- "The comparative politics essay on the Esping Andersen three worlds typology compared Sweden Germany and the United States with attention to decommodification and stratification, brought in the Hacker American welfare state literature, and the Esping Andersen original framework was correctly applied. My professor used my essay as the model in the next class." Senior political science major, comparative welfare states seminar. Rating 5 out of 5.
- "The international relations theory essay applied offensive realism following Mearsheimer to the contemporary US China rivalry with attention to the Thucydides trap formulation from Allison and the constructivist counterargument from Friedberg. My IR theory professor said my essay was at the publishable graduate level." Senior political science major, IR theory seminar. Rating 5 out of 5.
- "The SCOTUS comparison essay on Citizens United versus FEC and Buckley versus Valeo correctly framed the question as the constitutional treatment of campaign finance regulation under the First Amendment and integrated the contemporary scholarship from Hasen and Issacharoff. My AP US Government teacher used my essay as the model and I scored a 5 on the exam." High school junior, AP US Government and Politics. Rating 5 out of 5.
- "The public policy memo on opioid use disorder financing for a state health agency followed the standard memo format with executive summary, problem statement, options analysis with quantitative cost estimates, recommendation and implementation considerations. My professor commented that the memo could be sent to a real state agency without revision." Senior public policy major, policy analysis seminar. Rating 5 out of 5.
- "The political theory close reading of Rousseau's Social Contract handled the general will and the particular will distinction correctly with citations to the Cole translation and the contemporary scholarship from Cohen and Strong. My political theory professor accepted the essay without revision." Senior political science major, political theory seminar. Rating 4 out of 5.
References and further reading
- American Political Science Association. APSA Style Manual for Political Science. Current edition.
- The Chicago Manual of Style. Seventeenth edition. The University of Chicago Press.
- King G Keohane RO and Verba S. Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton University Press.
- George AL and Bennett A. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. MIT Press.
- Skocpol T. States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge University Press.
- Esping Andersen G. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton University Press.
- Waltz KN. Theory of International Politics. Waveland Press.
- Mearsheimer JJ. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Updated edition. WW Norton.
- Wendt A. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge University Press.
- Rawls J. A Theory of Justice. Revised edition. Harvard University Press.
- Mayhew DR. Congress: The Electoral Connection. Yale University Press.
- The College Board. AP US Government and Politics and AP Comparative Government and Politics Course and Exam Descriptions. Current editions.