A Tunisian coalition of workers, employers, human rights activists and lawyers has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was hailed for pulling the country that sparked the Arab Spring back on to a path towards democracy and preventing it from descending into civil war.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the quartet's "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 Tunisia, whose young and still shaky democracy suffered two extremist attacks this year that killed 60 people and devastated the tourism industry.