A tip for anyone aspiring to win the Nobel Peace Prize - visit Norway. In a curious mix of coincidence, luck and lobbying, many laureates since the award was set up in 1901 have been to the Nordic nation before the prize decision. The 2005 winner will be announced on October 7 from a field of 199 candidates.
"It may be that the members of the committee feel more tempted when they have met someone, heard them talk and been impressed," said Stein Toennesson, head of the International Peace Research Institute in the Norwegian capital Oslo.
"The committee sees the world from a Norwegian viewpoint, but not to the extent that they try to realise Norwegian national interests," he said.
Since 1990 alone, about half the laureates have either visited Norway, won another Norwegian prize beforehand or had some other strong prior link to Norway, the home of what many see as the world's top accolade.
That raises questions about whether the secretive five-member Norwegian committee has an Olympian detachment or whether its world view is heavily coloured by what happens at home - raising risks of subtle lobbying.
A chance visit to Oslo seems to do wonders to bring a little known candidate onto the committee's radar. Blatant lobbying often fails - supporters of one unidentified candidate in 1991 in vain submitted 40 boxes crammed full of petitions.
Among coincidental pre-prize visitors, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai won last year after she had been in Norway in mid-2004 to receive another prize.
Similarly, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi won in 2003 two years after she had been to Norway to collect a Norwegian human rights award, the Rafto prize. Four Rafto winners have gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize since 1990.
"We have made some good choices," Rafto prize jury chairman Arne Liljedahl Lynngaard said. "We can sometimes be a test balloon - the Nobel committee can see how our prize is accepted by the media and by politicians world-wide," he added.
Among non-Rafto winners, American Jody Williams and her International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 - months after negotiating a UN treaty in Oslo.
The head of the Nobel Committee, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, denied that the committee was unduly influenced by events in Norway. The $1.3 million prize was set up by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and the inventor of dynamite.
"We follow the will of Alfred Nobel," Mjoes said, noting that it was stipulated that the prize should go to those who have done most for fraternity between nations, for abolishing or reducing armies or for holding or promoting peace congresses.
Backers say a Norwegian perspective may be part of the award's success. On the northern fringe of Europe, Norway's small 4.6 million population has a liberal outlook on world affairs, uncluttered by big foreign policy interests.
Still, others say committee members sometimes lack expertise. Members are appointed by parties in parliament to six-year terms and are meant to be independent.
"It's a problem. The members of the committee are politicians, not experts on international affairs - they naturally have a national outlook," said Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor of political science at Oslo University.
Irwin Abrams, a professor emeritus of Antioch University, Ohio, and a leading world expert on the prize, said lobbying and visits by hopefuls were nothing new. It was harder to say whether they worked. Norman Angell, a British peace campaigner who won the 1933 prize, would have been disqualified if the committee had learnt of his behind-the-scenes lobbying including drafting a nomination for himself in defiance of the rules, he said.
By contrast, Father Dominique Pire, a little known Belgian priest who won in 1958 for aiding refugees, gave a speech in Oslo shortly before the prize. He impressed the committee and probably tipped the balance in his favour, Abrams said. But visits can backfire.
"If Mother Teresa (who won in 1979) had visited earlier and given a speech against abortion, which so annoyed Oslo feminists when she did get the prize, would she have been given the prize?" he asked.
Lobbying has not always alienated the committee. Successful campaigns were mounted for winners like Carl von Ossietzky, a jailed anti-Nazi writer and pacifist who won the 1935 prize.
For 2005, several candidates have won favourable coverage in the Norwegian media, including former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, a bookmakers' favourite for brokering a peace deal in Indonesia between Aceh rebels and the government.
US Senator Richard Lugar and former senator Sam Nunn are also tipped for their work to dismantle Soviet-era nuclear arms. A Norwegian newspaper commented earlier this year that their work "ought to be worth a peace prize."
Irish rock star Bono, also favoured with fellow musician Bob Geldof for campaigning against poverty, played a concert with his band U2 in Oslo in August.
NRK public television recently showed Geldof meeting Development Minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson in New York. She even tried singing one of his old hits: "I Don't Like Mondays".