By Dr Shujaat Ali Quadri
For more than a century, the Nobel Peace Prize has been portrayed as the world’s most prestigious recognition of those who champion peace, democracy, and human rights. Yet beneath its celebrated veneer lies a deeper, more troubling reality: the prize has often been less about genuine peacemaking and more about legitimising the geopolitical and ideological priorities of the West particularly those of the United States and its allies. The 2025 nomination and global media praise of Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado is only the latest chapter in this pattern, one that reveals how the Nobel Peace Prize is routinely used as a soft power instrument to reward pro-Western actors and advance capitalist, U.S. aligned interests.
When Alfred Nobel conceived the Peace Prize in 1895, his intention was to honour individuals and organisations that had “done the most or best work for fraternity between nations.” However, over time, this noble aspiration has been co-opted by political calculations. Particularly after World War II, the Nobel Committee based in Norway but deeply influenced by Euro-Atlantic geopolitical thinking has shown a clear preference for laureates whose work aligns with Western narratives of democracy, free markets, and liberal interventionism.
Figures such as Henry Kissinger (1973) and Barack Obama (2009) are telling examples. Kissinger’s award, given despite his direct involvement in brutal wars and coups from Vietnam to Chile, was widely seen as a reward for advancing U.S. hegemony under the guise of diplomacy. Obama, awarded the prize less than a year into his presidency, had not yet made any significant contribution to peace but he represented a refreshing, liberal U.S. face to the world. Both cases illustrated a pattern: the Nobel Peace Prize often functions as a seal of approval for those who protect, expand, or legitimise Western global influence.
The Case of María Corina Machado
The recent glorification of María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader hailed in Western media as a “defender of democracy,” perfectly illustrates this trend. Machado’s political trajectory has been deeply intertwined with Washington’s agenda in Latin America. A staunch critic of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, she has consistently advocated neoliberal economic policies and aligned herself with U.S. efforts to isolate, delegitimise, and ultimately overthrow the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.
While Machado and her supporters claim to fight for “democratic change,” her politics often overlap with Washington’s regime-change playbook. She has openly supported U.S. sanctions measures that have crippled Venezuela’s economy and caused immense suffering to ordinary Venezuelans. Moreover, she has participated in parallel “shadow governments” backed by the United States, directly undermining Venezuelan sovereignty and the outcomes of its electoral processes.
Yet despite this or rather because of it Western institutions and think tanks have lionised Machado as a symbol of democracy and resistance. The fact that she was even considered a frontrunner for the Nobel Peace Prize demonstrates how far the award has strayed from its original mission. Machado’s nomination is not about rewarding peace or reconciliation; it is about legitimising a U.S.-friendly political project in a region historically targeted by American interventionism.
The Nobel Committee’s ideological bias is perhaps most evident in who it chooses not to honour. Grassroots leaders, anti-imperialist movements, and activists who challenge Western dominance are routinely overlooked. Figures like Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, or even Nelson Mandela (honoured only after the end of apartheid when he was no longer a revolutionary threat) were sidelined or demonised until their causes became politically convenient.
Even more striking is the absence of recognition for whistleblowers like Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, whose revelations about Western surveillance and war crimes arguably contributed more to global peace and accountability than many past laureates. Their exclusion reflects the uncomfortable truth that the Nobel Peace Prize is rarely awarded to those who challenge Western power only to those who reinforce or sanitise it.
Seen in this light, the Nobel Peace Prize functions less as a neutral arbiter of moral virtue and more as a strategic tool of Western soft power. It amplifies voices that support liberal capitalism and U.S.-led global order while marginalising alternative visions of justice, sovereignty, or post-colonial solidarity. It transforms political actors into global icons not for their universal contribution to peace, but for their usefulness to a particular geopolitical narrative.
This dynamic also serves a domestic purpose within the West: by celebrating figures like Machado, the Nobel Committee signals to global audiences that democracy and human rights are synonymous with Western leadership, even when that leadership is tied to coercive sanctions, military interventions, or economic exploitation.
If the Nobel Peace Prize is to retain its moral authority, it must free itself from ideological captivity. It must recognise that peace is not merely the absence of war or the spread of free markets, but the dismantling of structural violence including the economic and political systems that perpetuate inequality, imperialism, and neocolonialism. This would mean rewarding those who resist oppression in all its forms, not just those sanctioned by Washington or Brussels.
Until then, we must view each Nobel Peace Prize announcement with a critical eye. The applause and glowing headlines that follow are often less about honouring genuine peacemakers and more about reaffirming the global order as defined by Western interests.
The case of María Corina Machado is a stark reminder: when the world’s most prestigious peace award is used to validate regime change politics and neoliberal orthodoxy, it ceases to be a symbol of peace. It becomes, instead, a weapon wielded not for humanity, but for hegemony.
Dr Shujaat Ali Quadri is the National Chairman of Muslim Students Organisation of India MSO, he writes on a wide range of issues, including, Sufism, Public Policy, Geopolitics and Information Warfare.
11 October 2025
Source: countercurrents.org