This paper examines undergraduate students’ understandings and learning difficulties concerning political science core concepts. A review of research on teaching and learning in political science education concludes on a dominating focus on students’ outcomes and "show and tell" of pedagogical interventions (Craig 2014). We believe it is important to enhance our knowledge of students’ learning processes, and possible learning difficulties, as political knowledge is a key component in civic engagement. Departing in the conceptual change literature, we present findings on how everyday understanding influences learning of the concepts ”positive rights” and ”anarchic world order”, causing various learning difficulties. The implications of the results suggest that teaching needs to address and explicate the differences between scientific and everyday understanding and language.