Chapter 8 considers international territorial administration through multilateral governance structures, devoting special attention to Antarctica as a global res communis for peaceful exploration and scientific study.

Written into the Versailles Treaty fifteen years earlier, the Saar plebiscite of 1935 asked the inhabitants of this important German industrial region whether they wished to return to Germany, join France, or remain under the existing League of Nations administration. As technical advisor and deputy member of the plebiscite commission, Sarah Wambaugh would play the leading role in organising the vote and in shaping public perceptions of its efficacy. As a pathbreaking woman playing a masterful role in a sensitive political question, Wambaugh would become an international news story in her own right. Although the plebiscite was widely seen as a successful example of the peaceful settlement of disputes, its electoral outcome was an overwhelming triumph for Nazi Germany. The chapter concludes with a comparison of Wambaugh’s positive appraisal of the Saar plebiscite to British journalist Elizabeth Wiskemann’s dissenting view, which came to diametrically opposite conclusions.

The recourse to TG is flourishing, especially as state creation has passed its zenith, and ITA is considered too costly while also being normatively contested. Through TG, international involvement can furthermore be cost-efficient and discrete while leaving its marks on virtually all state renaissance components. In addition, some might try to argue that TG is preferable on pseudo-legal grounds. In any event, state transformations are subject to internal and external influences in many fields, including a field going to the core of a state’s business: regime transformation and reconstitutionalisation. TG is placed centre stage in international diplomacy, and already plays an important role for the international security system. In public discourse, external involvement is often associated with the peace-through-transition paradigm and the assistance model. Yet, such discourse barely conceals that goals other than international peace and security namely constitutional geopolitics – can be pursued through assistance to TG.