An institution is a relatively stable set or “structure” of identities and interests. Such structures are often codified in formal rules and norms, but these have motivational force only in virtue of actors’ socialization to and participation in collective knowledge. Institutions are fundamentally cognitive entities that do not exist apart from actors’ ideas about how the world works. This does not mean that institutions are not real or objective, that they are “nothing but” beliefs. As collective knowledge, they are experienced as having an existence “over and above” the individuals who happen to embody them at the moment. In this way, institutions come to confront individuals as more or less coercive social facts, but they are still a function of what actors collectively “know”.

Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is what states make of it. In: International Organization, vol. 46, n.o 2, 1992, p. 395.

Com base no texto acima e considerando as instituições e suas características, assinale a opção correta.