For Whom Nobel Tolls? An Interpretive Account of the Migration of the Concept of Peace as Perceived through the Solemn Eyes of Norwegian Lawmakers

Abstract

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded on an annual basis since 1901. Since then there have been some years when no prize was awarded, usually during wartime, and other years where the award has proved controversial. Nevertheless, the award has always reflected something important about prevailing ideas concerning the concept of peace. This paper seeks to make sense of this history in order to explain some of the underlying discursive dynamics that make certain awards controversial, and others widely applauded. In particular some reflection is offered on the recent direction of the award towards wider social issues such as poverty and the environment. What this analysis reveals is the slow evolution of the Peace Prize from reflecting and legitimising notions of `peace as order' towards more entrepreneurial notions of `peace as justice'. The paper then moves on to briefly consider how the discourse of peace has subtly shifted in the aftermath of 9/11, and why — in the absence of universally accepted accounts of justice — peace is being recast in terms of legitimate frameworks of human security. In the light of this the paper argues for being positive about negative peace, and suggests that if the Norwegian Nobel Committee continues to reflect wider discourses of peace, it will reverse its recent trend of using the prize to highlight wider and wider questions of development and the environment. Lastly, the paper makes a brief case in favour of Interpol being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, both in recognition of its place at the centre of quotidian matters of legitimate international police and security cooperation, and as a means of establishing some conceptual benchmarks by which to disaggregate the police and security measures that states already agree on, from those they do not.