Max Gallien is a political scientist specialising in the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa, development politics, as well as informal and illegal economies. His PhD project, 'Smugglers and States - A Political Economy of Informal Trade in North Africa', is based on 14 months of in-depth fieldwork in the borderlands of Tunisia and Morocco. He holds a BA and MPhil from the University of Oxford, and has been a visiting scholar at Al-Akhawayn University Ifrane and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

He is a frequent commentator on the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa in journalistic outlets. He has briefed and advised government departments and embassies in the United Kingdom, Tunisia and Morocco, and is an adviser to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Tunisia in the House of Commons.