It is certainly known to be possible to homopolymerize,  even though a disubstituted olefin is often asserted not to be polymerizable using radical initiators.

--

Note added 4 days later:

Link wasn't working for the attached link, and has been updated address as text due to some odd issue with ResearchGate:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/macp.1962.020530105/abstract

Disubstituted vinyl monomers with highly electron withdrawing carbonyl groups wouldn't polymerize easily by free radical method.  The resulting radical is an electron deficient, and so is the head of the double bond of mentioned monomers.

It is not easy or even possible as the carbonyl and convoluted structures deactivate or deteriorate the radicals and electrons

We have done several experiments, and the answer was NO.

Thank you all, this is very helpful.

Dear all,

would you please check theses attached documents. Regards

Dear Bouaziz

Thank you for the enlightening references.  

Young H Kim

Thank you Mr. Bouaziz for your valuable contribution!

Dear Dr. Young and Dr. Alessandro;

in few months (I hope) I will publish an update review on the subject of maleic anhydride chemistry and polymers. Please feel free to ask me for any bibliographic material on this subject. Regards

It is highly possible to polymerize maleic anhydride, and we are doing it on manufacturing scale. though you need little higher mole% of free radical initiator. The answer is YES they can be homopolymerised.

 Dears

I synthesized malice anydrid with DCP and wax, but when I want to measure grafting efficiency by titration, I saw my products has basic Ph. 

is there anybody to help me what is wrong?

many many thanks