The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee spent seven months winnowing the dossiers on dissident monks, human rights advocates, field surgeons and other nominees — 205 names in all — before deciding to give the Nobel Peace Prize to perhaps the most famous man on the planet, Barack Obama.

While in recent decades the selection process has produced many winners better known for their suffering or their environmental zeal than for peacemaking, panel chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said the members this year took a more practical approach in their vote for Obama.

“It’s important for the committee to recognise people who are struggling and idealistic,” Jagland said in an interview, “but we cannot do that every year. We must from time to time go into the realm of realpolitik. It is always a mix of idealism and realpolitik that can change the world.”

Geir Lundestad, who as executive director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute has handled the committee’s administrative affairs since 1990, said the panel met six or seven times this year.

This year the panel did not settle on a winner until Monday, Lundestad said. The committee took a chance in choosing Obama, who not only is in his freshman year as President, but also is directing two wars.