[SMGFan]

Yes, the prize is a joke.

[pepsionice]

If you dig around to the members of the committee who make this decision...it’s a fairly oddball group of intellectuals who don’t travel much, socialize only with other intellectuals, and never spent anytime with regular people.

[x]

You can see this as another instance of Parkinson's Laws.

Just at the British Colonial Office expanded as the Empire shrank, so awards go to institutions that are already on the way out.

That may be why they gave Obama the prize when he he was at his peak.

But the European Coal and Steel Community or the European Economic Community (forerunners of the EU) may well have kept France and Germany from going to war once again.

Probably the Soviet threat was more important, and a too rapid expansion hurt the institution, but still, getting France and Germany and the rest of Western Europe to cooperate after two world wars was an achievement in its day.