This paper analyses major global economic influences on violent self-determination movements, distinguishing between those influences which affect the basic causes of violent SDMs from those that help sustain and finance such movements. While globalisation has been associated with economic development and political stability in some places, elsewhere it has been accompanied by rising poverty, worsening horizontal inequalities and a weakened state providing fertile ground for violent SDMs. These have been financed, and to some extent motivated, by a variety of global sources, some legal (e.g. oil, aid) and some illegeal (e.g. drugs). Most international attention has been placed on controlling sources of finance, but such attempts have invariably been ineffective. It is argued that such efforts will almost certainly continue to be ineffective unless priority is given to addressing the underlying economic causes of violent SDMs.