Chapter 17 Demobilization and Disengagement in a Life Course Perspective Olivier Fillieule A Neglected Area of Research We know little about the mechanisms governing the decline of social movements and the varied forms of individual or collective demobilization that prompt this decline or end it. Indeed, as Verta Taylor emphasizes, “scholars generally are more interested in movements undergoing cycles of mass mobilization and have done little research on movements in decline or equilibrium” (1989: 772). Yet, the logical counterpart of the initial recruitment and mobilization processes is clearly collective demobilization and individual disengagement. hus, we might suggest that one of the permanent traits of political organizations, whether they are political parties, unions or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is turnover and consequently defection (Fillieule 2010). here are at least four explanations for the failure of the literature to address this. First, activism has been less studied for itself than through the analysis of organizations which frame it. his leads naturally to reasoning in terms of stock rather than low. Secondly, microsociological approaches to behavior, except for their economicist version of rational choice theory, have long been discarded in the name of the struggle against the paradigm of collective behaviour. hirdly, there is a scarcity of sources that can prove useful in understanding the activist low. By deinition, ex-activists are no longer pre- sent at the time of the investigation and, very oten, organizations do not retain records of members which would allow researchers to track those no longer active or, if they do, they do not make them readily available to researchers. Fourthly, there is the diiculty of moving from static approaches to a true processual perspective which, in this particu- lar case, is based on setting up longitudinal studies, whether prospective or retrospec- tive (Fillieule 2001). However, in broadening the range of literature to review related OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Fri Jul 17 2015, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199678402-part_3.indd 277 7/17/2015 2:20:01 PM