Fountain of Knowledge

Thoughts: "contemporary impacts" isn't a thing, but there are two common tracks of poli sci that appear in many, many universities: American politics and comparative politics. Both of these would focus on the modern rather than history or theory, and depending on whether she's looking domestic or international, might work. (International relations might be what you want, though that's often a separate department because it's more interdisciplinary than poli sci. That said, it wouldn't be implausible for the poli sci department to have an international relations track rather than a separate department. I can talk more about this if you're interested, since my department, public policy, is sometimes a track of poli sci rather than its own department, and I know a lot about these departments.)

Have her earning a BS rather than a master's. I have never heard of academic scholarships for master's degrees in political science, although government aid is sometimes available depending on the student's financial situation.

The ultimate goal is for her to be stuck working with someone she doesn't like but can't walk away from because her grade is dependent on it. In a subject she knows/normally enjoys.

Any medium or large class that has group projects would fit this. With the exception of very small classes (<15 students), I have never had the option of picking my own group for assignments, even for small groups or partners. She wouldn't be able to get out of it; she would have to work with the assigned partner or fail. Having to work on group projects can create all sorts of issues for people because the other partners do too little, do too much, don't attend class, don't know anything, think they know everything, can't agree on times to work on the project, don't want to bother, etc.

In the group projects I've been assigned, the TAs usually assigned the groups randomly (typically alphabetically), but the professor could certainly team people up on purpose if he or she so chose.

Lorien