As one of the reviewers stated below, it's 4 essays over the entire quarter, each one 3 pages long.
Lectures are generally boring, just with the professor babbling on about philosophical stuff, so you can skip those to save you the boredom.
The textbooks are mostly just classical novels you can get for a couple of bucks, and are really only needed for citing in your essays.
For my TA, I chose Jared, who was pretty laid back and was okay with you using electronics during section.
As for my essays, I started/finished each one within a day of the dates they were due and got 17/19/19/19 out of 20, with just a simple quote from each of the books needed for each essay.
Take this class if you want yourself an easy A provided you have a good TA to grade the essays.

JUST DON'T TAKE IT

This class consists of 4 essays and participation in discussion. Don't be fooled it's a challenging class and Is more of a philosophy class than political science. I would definitely not take it if it is your first class in poly sci. With the grade only being 4 essays it's challenging to get a good grade if you don't do well on one, but having the right TA can make all the difference. I had Aerick and he was great so if you do take the class try to get him

This class was very manageable. I received an A, but I went to every office hour my TA had, The grade consists of 8 essays and thats it, and the TAs grade it with a rubric from Panagia, so go to office hours and they will help you. I didn't go to lecture, I just read the 5 pages of the book that mattered (out of the 60 that were assigned) and then went to office hours and I passed the writing assignments. Good way to start off Poli. Sci.

Final grade: A

I really enjoyed having Professor Panagia. He always came to lecture with a great sense of humor and was overall enjoyable to listen to (and had great outfits). The readings were extensive but going to discussion definitely helped and your grade was based on 8 essays (300-500 words) and participation in discussion. It was overall a relatively easy class but if you failed anymore than 2 of the essays your grade would seriously suffer. I recommend going to office hours in order to gauge what your TA is looking for in the essays. Personally, I passed all 8 essays and did not find it difficult to write on the prompts given, but I also went to office hours almost every week.

This was the first class that I took at UCLA an I straight up loved it. Panagia made the material (which I previously thought would be boring) very intriguing and accessible. Lectures were helpful, but honestly where I got most of my fodder for essays was in my discussions with him during office hours. I went to office hours almost every week, and because of that, the essays were exponentially easier for me. The readers were sometimes dry, but Panagia made sure to make them at least a little more clear.

I passed all 8 essays and got an A in the class.

I was able to learn very much about philosophy, improve my ability to read antiquated works, and discover the origins of many political ideas by taking this course. However, attendance was taken far too seriously.

Summary: take it if you're a political science, english, or philosophy major; don't bother if you aren't. It's pretty much a philosophy class about truth and power with lots of reading and interpretation.

This was a very interesting class. Let me begin that, unlike most, I enjoyed the majority of Panagia's lectures. He has a very deep and interdisciplinary way of teaching the material, and I really liked how he would give us a wider view on the overarching importance of the works we were analyzing.
The grading for this class consisted of eight essays, one a week after the second week, and a participation grade for discussing the readings each week in section. There were no tests, quizzes, or other papers/projects. The readings would take a significant amount of time, and we would sometimes cover two authors in one week. However, the papers were only 300-400 words each, and where meant to be concise and well thought out analyses of the texts on specific questions. I had Kye as TA, and he was awesome whenever I needed help with the readings. He had outlines and discussion questions that he would email out the night before discussion if we asked.
The issue that most people had with this class was that the lectures had nothing to do with the assignments. Yes, Panagia would lecture on the significance of the readings and provide general explanations, but the majority of interpreting the text was left to us. As a political science major I enjoyed the assignments and figuring out how the readings applied to the prompts, but everyone taking the class to fulfill a GE was dissapointed with how much you actually had to read and think.
A final note: Panagia is straight outta some liberal arts school in Canada, so our class was kind of an experiment for him and the department. I don't think most other POL SCI 10 classes go through so many readings so quickly, or have the same grading structure and assignment list.

From all of the concentrations in the Political Science department, Political Theory is the one that comes the easiest to me. That said, there will be some bias or a differing of experiences from my part.

Panagia is chill, sometimes sarcastic in class (but with good intentions) and at times engaging. If you do not like Political Theory, the class will be boring.

Panagia for one counts lecture attendance as a grade. Go to lecture. Period. If you need the points then go to lecture. Every week (with the exception of two weeks in the quarter due to a holiday weekend as well as the first week of lecture) he assigns you a 300-400 word essay answering a prompt on the reading he gives you. He goes into detail about the reading in class. Some weeks his lecture really focuses on the prompt topic; other times it does not, so make sure to do the readings or research them. All essays are Pass/No Pass, and the more essays you pass, the higher your grade. If you pass all of them (as well as attend all the lectures and discussions) you are guaranteed an A+.

I ended up with an A+ with little effort from my part (I didn't do all of the readings, I went to lecture, took notes, took notes during discussion and relied on summaries of the texts online), and I primarily give credit to my previous exposure taking philosophy courses that helped me condense my thoughts and avoid adding fluff in my essays.

If you need help with your essays, go to your TA. They will be extremely helpful in guiding you. My TA, Kye, was awesome in discussion, and from talking to some classmates in there, they said that Kye was really helpful during office hours.

If Political Theory is easy for you, then this class will be a breeze. If not, then the extra help from the TAs or the professor will do you well.