Does international recognition of statehood affect popular support for violence among groups engaged in struggles for self-determination? On the one hand, there is widespread skepticism about the ability of the United Nations General Assembly to affect mass attitudes. On the other hand, theories in international relations imply that international recognition may also weaken support for the use of violence through the diffusion of international norms against the use of violence by non-state actors or because recognition increases the perceived effectiveness of non-violence as a strategy for achieving group goals. We build on these perspectives in order to develop a theory through which international recognition could affect mass attitudes as well. The paper then presents the first empirical test of the influence of international recognition on mass attitudes towards the use of violence. It does so using an innovative combination of a panel survey conducted around the 2012 recognition of Palestine as a state by the United Nations General Assembly and a survey experiment embedded in the second wave of the panel. Empirically testing the impact of international recognition on attitudes towards the use of violence allows us to adjudicate between the different perspectives on the impact of international recognition implied by the international relations literature. Doing so is also substantively important given the growing use of international rulings to adjudicate self-determination conflicts.