Research Papers / Structure for research essay? [2]

Okay, firstly I haven't written essays since high school which was now more than 5 years ago. I've previously been studying science based subjects so I've gotten good at reports but my essay skills are sorely lacking. To put it another way, if I know what I want to say I can write it down, but figuring out what I want to say and when is a challenge.

Largely because I haven't really written essays at university before, I've signed up for a 300-level essay-based economics paper. It definitely feels like I've been thrown in the deep end. The essay we're working on at the moment requires reading several papers to determine three different authors views on a subject (does anarchy work?), then researching some more on Somalia to find evidence to support (or not) the three different views.

I'm struggling to get as far as an outline to write from. And then, if I do write something, my paragraph structure is all over the place and I can't order and write the paragraphs so they flow from one to the next.

Given the three different views to explain, I figure my essay needs an introduction, three main sections, and a conclusion. But each section needs several paragraphs itself. Is it okay to write an introduction then a few paragraphs for each different section? Are there any tricks to writing an essay requiring this sort of structure? It feels like I'm missing something really basic in my approach to this essay.