Working with

Max Waltman is a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Cape Town, between July 14 and December 14, 2024. His research addresses fundamental problems related to the meaning of citizenship, equality, and freedom. It is problem-driven and seeks to explain the potential for political systems to fight exploitation, violence, and discrimination. His latest book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of how the explosive spread of pornography contributes to violence against women, including prostitution, and constructs a political theory on how to address the problem consistent with freedom of expression. The research is comparative, situated within politics and gender, political theory, specifically democratic theory, and constitutional, civil, and criminal law and courts. The book has been reviewed in the prestigious journals Ethics and Frontiers of Sociology, respectively.

In January 2025, Waltman published a comprehensive article with Catharine A. MacKinnon, entitled "Legal Prostitution: A Crime Against Humanity?" in Harvard International Law Journal. Waltman’s prior work appears in Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, Political Research Quarterly, Michigan Journal of International Law, Women’s Studies International Forum, Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, and Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society, as well as in other publications. His op-eds have been published in the New York Times, Toronto Star, Swedish newspapers (e.g., DN, SvD, GP), and various online news sites. Legislative bodies domestically and abroad have consulted him, and he works on policy initiatives with prostitution survivors and feminist groups.

During the academic year 2016–2017, Waltman was a visiting researcher and fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. During the academic year 2017–2018, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). Waltman has, among other things, received post-doctoral research funds from the Wenner-Gren Foundations (Sweden). He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Stockholm University.