Between Oct. 5 and Oct. 12, Nobel Prize Committee members in Oslo and Stockholm placed calls around the world to 13 people. Many of them were still asleep when the call came. They woke to a voice telling them that they were one of those, “who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” The award for each of six Nobel Prize categories totals $1.4 million. Eleven of the 13 winners are American citizens.

On campus, the choice of a woman political scientist for the economics prize received as much attention as the surprise award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama.

Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom and UC-Berkeley professor Oliver Eaton Williamson will share the prize for their separate research on economic governance.

In the political science department, Assistant Professor Maria Rosales said she has heard from colleagues around the country celebrating Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel award.

“They are thrilled,” Rosales said. “Her win is considered a win for political science. Ostrom’s work is detailed, careful and very grounded.”

Ostrom’s research offers an alternative to the economic theory known as “the tragedy of the commons.” That theory holds that private ownership or government regulation are needed to stop people from depleting natural resources like forests or grazing land.

The theory assumes that environmental tragedies are inevitable, because people will always choose immediate gain for themselves without thinking of the long-term effects on others.

Ostrom and her political science students looked at actual behavior around the world and found many groups succeeding at sustainable management of natural resources.

The Nobel committee points out that Ostrom has shown “the argument against common property is overly simplistic. It neglects the fact that users themselves can both create and enforce rules that mitigate overexploitation.”

She and her students have documented communities that successfully use and preserve other natural resources from the Maine lobster fisheries to irrigation systems in Nepal.

Ostrom doesn’t oppose private ownership or government regulation. She also tells of failed cases of common ownership. Her research establishes that in groups where everyone takes part in making and enforcing rules, sustainable management succeeds.

Guilford economics professor Natalya Shelkova also cheered Ostrom’s award.

“For some reason men have been seen as the greater authority in this field. Her win breaks the spell,” said Shelkova.

Rosales is glad to see more women influencing the debate as the number of women economists and political scientists increase, because “all the social sciences are having the same kind of battles over how quantitative to be. Women will change the debate about what you count, how you measure, how you count.”

Between 1901 and 2008, the Nobel committee has awarded Nobel prizes to only 40 women.

The Nobel Committee set a new record this year when it awarded prizes to five women. This was also the first year a woman had ever won the Nobel prize in economics. Women have won Nobel awards only 41 times in the 108 year history of the prize. French scientist Marie Curie won it twice.

Oliver Williamson shared the prize with Ostrom this year. His work on corporations concludes that big doesn’t have to be bad, but bad behavior needs to be controlled. He says since large corporations can often be the most efficient, government should not regulate size.

Williamson said that it is necessary to directly regulate corporate behavior to control abuses like political lobbying and price fixing.

Albert Nobel, for whom the prizes are named, wanted his peace prize to have a political impact on the world. The Nobel Prizes are meant to influence the future as well as recognize past achievements. This year the Nobel Peace Prize went to President Obama.

Some questioned his award. Obama acknowledged their doubts in his remarks at a White House press conference. He said he saw the award as a call to action and, “not as a recognition of my own accomplishments.”

Later that week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez complained in his weekly newspaper column that Obama was the wrong choice because he was fighting two wars and expanding the United States military presence in South America.

Many world leaders praised the choice of Obama for the prize, however.

“It is a very imaginative and somewhat surprising choice. He has had a very significant impact . and almost everybody feels a little more hopeful about the world,” said Desmond Tutu, a South African anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Prize laureate, according to the Associated Press.