OSLO: Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its contribution to building democracy after the Jasmine Revolution in 2011, the Nobel Committee said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy" in the North African country following its 2011 revolution.

"It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war," the committee said in its citation.

The prize is a huge victory for small Tunisia, whose young and still shaky democracy suffered two extremist attacks this year that killed 60 people and devastated the tourism industry.

Tunisian protesters sparked uprisings across the Arab world in 2011 that overthrew dictators and upset the status quo. Tunisia is the only country in the region to painstakingly build a democracy, involving a range of political and social forces in dialogue to create a constitution, legislature and democratic institutions.

"More than anything, the prize is intended as an encouragement to the Tunisian people, who despite major challenges have laid the groundwork for a national fraternity which the committee hopes will serve as an example to be followed by other countries," committee chair Kaci Kullmann Five said.

The National Dialogue Quartet is made up of four key organisations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers.

Kullmann Five said the prize was for the quartet as a whole, not the four individual organisations.

The decision came as a surprise to many, with speculation having focused on Europe's migrant crisis or the Iran-United States nuclear deal in July.

"It is a very good prize that tries to get into the heart of the conflict in the Muslim world," said Oeyvind Stenersen, a Nobel historian. "But it was a bit bewildering. It was very unexpected."

There were 273 candidates nominated for the 2015 peace prize, five fewer than in 2014.

The award capped a week of Nobel Prize announcements, with the winners of the medicine, physics, chemistry and literature awards presented earlier in Stockholm.

The economics award ─ not an original Nobel Prize but created in 1968 ─ will be announced on Monday.

Full List of Nobel Peace Prize Winners since 1901

A complete list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates since 1901, when the prize was first awarded:

• 2015: The National Dialogue Quartet (Tunisia)
• 2014: Kailash Satyarthi (India) and Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan)
• 2013: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
• 2012: The European Union (EU)
• 2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), Tawakkul Karman (Yemen)
• 2010: Liu Xiaobo (China)
• 2009: Barack Obama (US)
• 2008: Martti Ahtisaari (Finland)
• 2007: Al Gore (US) and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• 2006: Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) and the Grameen Bank
• 2005: International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei (Egypt)
• 2004: Wangari Maathai (Kenya)
• 2003: Shirin Ebadi (Iran)
• 2002: Jimmy Carter (US)
• 2001: Kofi Annan (Ghana) and the United Nations
• 2000: Kim Dae Jung (South Korea)1999: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)
• 1998: John Hume and David Trimble (Northern Ireland)
• 1997: Jody Williams (US) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
• 1996: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta (East Timor)
• 1995: Joseph Rotblat (Britain) and the Pugwash movement
• 1994: Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres (Israel) and Yasser Arafat (PLO)
• 1993: Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk (South Africa)
• 1992: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala)
• 1991: Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma)
• 1990: Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union)
• 1989: Dalai Lama (Tibet)
• 1988: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
• 1987: Oscar Arias Sanchez (Costa Rica)
  • 1986: Elie Wiesel (US)
• 1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
• 1984: Desmond Tutu (South Africa)
• 1983: Lech Walesa (Poland)
• 1982: Alva Myrdal (Sweden) and Alfonso Garcia Robles (Mexico)
• 1981: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• 1980: Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina)
• 1979: Mother Teresa (Albania)
• 1978: Anwar Sadat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel)
• 1977: Amnesty International
• 1976: Betty Williams (Britain) and Mairead Corrigan (Northern Ireland)
• 1975: Andrei Sakharov (Soviet Union)
• 1974: Sean MacBride (Ireland) and Eisaku Sato (Japan)
• 1973: Henry Kissinger (US) and Le Duc Tho (Vietnam, declined)
• 1972: prize not handed out
• 1971: Willy Brandt (Germany)
• 1970: Norman Borlaug (US)
• 1969: International Labour Organisation
• 1968: Rene Cassin (France)
• 1967: prize not handed out
• 1966: prize not handed out
• 1965: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
• 1964: Martin Luther King Jr (US)
• 1963: International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies
• 1962: Linus Carl Pauling (US)
• 1961: Dag Hammarskjoeld (Sweden)
• 1960: Albert Lutuli (South Africa)
• 1959: Philip Noel-Baker (Britain)
• 1958: Georges Pire (Belgium)
• 1957: Lester Pearson (Canada)
• 1956: prize not handed out
• 1955: prize not handed out
• 1954: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• 1953: George Marshall (US)
• 1952: Albert Schweitzer (France)
• 1951: Leon Jouhaux (France)
• 1950: Ralph Bunche (US)
• 1949: Lord (John) Boyd Orr of Brechin (Britain)
• 1948: prize not handed out
• 1947: Friends Service Council (The Quakers), American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers)
• 1946: Emily Greene Balch (US), John Raleigh Mott (US)
• 1945: Cordell Hull (US)
• 1944: International Committee of the Red Cross
• 1943: prize not handed out
• 1942: prize not handed out
• 1941: prize not handed out
• 1940: prize not handed out
• 1939: prize not handed out
• 1938: Nansen International Office for Refugees
• 1937: Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (Britain)
• 1936: Carlos Saavedra Lamas (Argentina)
• 1935: Carl von Ossietzky (Germany)
• 1934: Arthur Henderson (Britain)
• 1933: Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane) (Britain)
• 1932: prize not handed out
• 1931: Jane Addams (US) and Nicholas Murray Butler (US)
• 1930: Nathan Soederblom (Sweden)
• 1929: Frank Billings Kellogg (US)
• 1928: prize not handed out
• 1927: Ferdinand Buisson (France) and Ludwig Quidde (Germany)
• 1926: Aristide Briand (France) and Gustav Stresemann (Germany)
• 1925: Sir Austen Chamberlain (Britain) and Charles Gates Dawes (US)
• 1924: prize not handed out
• 1923: prize not handed out
• 1922: Fridtjof Nansen (Norway)
• 1921: Karl Hjalmar Branting (Sweden) and Christian Lous Lange (Norway)
• 1920: Leon Victor Auguste Bourgeois (France)
• 1919: Thomas Woodrow Wilson (US)
• 1918: prize not handed out
• 1917: International Committee of the Red Cross
• 1916: prize not handed out
• 1915: prize not handed out
• 1914: prize not handed out
• 1913: Henri La Fontaine (Belgium)
• 1912: Elihu Root (US)
• 1911: Tobias Michael Carel Asser (The Netherlands) and Alfred Hermann Fried (Austria)
• 1910: Permanent International Peace Bureau
• 1909: Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert (Belgium) and Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque (France)
• 1908: Klas Pontus Arnoldson (Sweden) and Fredrik Bajer (Denmark)
• 1907: Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (Italy) and Louis Renault (France)
• 1906: Theodore Roosevelt (US)
• 1905: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (Austria)
• 1904: Institute of International Law
• 1903: William Randal Cremer (Britain)
• 1902: Elie Ducommun (Switzerland) and Charles Albert Gobat (Switzerland)
• 1901: Jean Henri Dunant (Switzerland) and Frederic Passy (France)