It’s Nobel Prize season again. Beginning Monday, the Nobel Committee or the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce winners in medicine, physics, and chemistry. Then on October 6, the Norwegian Nobel Institute will announce the winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Winners of that coveted award get a credential to opine on issues of war and peace and diplomacy and politics on the world stage. In both impact and broader prestige, the Nobel Peace Prize is different. So too is the criteria by which it is awarded.

While prizes in the sciences are based on life’s work and proven success, Norwegian politicians and their appointed proxies award the Nobel Peace Prize more on the basis of aspiration and politics more than achievement of peace.