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Economists along with policy makers are generally viewing trade agreements as a “second best” process for trade expansion and economic growth on a global scale. The current surge of preferential trade arrangements on a bilateral basis, particularly in Asia, is somehow challenging such common view. The following paper is based on updated rough facts and put forward that the standard economic approach is a bit flawed. Obviously, the outcomes and prospects for Asian countries seem much more problematic insofar as power asymmetry and discrimination are embedded in these agreements.

Among emerging countries' foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe, the Chinese and the Indian ones are the more relevant. Therefore, the paper focuses on Chinese and Indian affiliates in Europe, with a twofold purpose: to shed light on their characteristics and behaviour and to analyse some policy issues in the EU stemming from their arrival to Europe.

First, the paper presents a review of the literature; second, it performs a qualitative analysis on the basis of a proprietary dataset. It then pinpoints the salient features of the Chinese and the Indian firms across Europe. Lastly, it focuses on the impacts of their operations on the European economies, and it concludes by a discussion on policy matters.

Four main results stand out. First, the arrival of Chinese and Indian firms in Europe is linked to home country constraints. Second, large European countries are the most favoured destinations. Third, market access is the main attraction factor for Chinese and Indian firms coming to Europe. Fourth, the sectoral distribution of investments by Chinese and Indian companies reflects for a large part the comparative advantage of their home country.

By taking into consideration data at a micro level, the paper gives a deeper view on FDI beyond the current ideas on the subject. It provides valuable insights on the behaviour of Chinese and Indian investors in Europe at a micro‐level. Furthermore, it explores a sensitive issue which is connected to the impacts on the European economies.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for analyzing home and host country determinants and outcomes of emerging multinationals (EMNCs).

The paper applies a conceptual approach combined with analyses of statistics and secondary material.

The paper identifies changing trends and features of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies and identifies in particular differences between outflows from Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC).

The paper puts forward a framework for analyzing determinants and outcomes of structures and strategies of multinational companies from emerging economies and surveys contemporary trends and features of outward FDI from these economies.

This chapter looks at a new form of a hybrid perpetrator within the field of individualized political violence. We reveal, that the new thing about (transnational) terrorism overcomes current oppositions and contradictions regarding terrorists and persons running amok, which (strategically) leads to an individualization of terrorism and thereby to a hybridization of a terroristic warfare.

By outlining organizational and structural changes in terroristic strategy within the framework of using both modern and antimodern elements, economic thinking, acting global as well as local, and by using network structures, the individualization of terror to the point of hybrid perpetrators is presented.

The new thing about (transnational) terrorism is the evolution of individualized perpetrators, radicalizing themselves without a clear connection to terroristic organizations. This leads to a hybridization of terroristic warfare, and within individualized single perpetrators it can be described as terrok. A terrorist running amok or a gunman on rampage with a radicalized mindset, equipped with his very individual ideology, who carries out his attacks logistically and operatively on his own while accepting his own death constitutes a new strategic way of irritating western society.

Currently, terrorists and persons running amok are separated into sharply distinguished categories. But regarding new tendencies in terroristic attacks committed by single perpetrators, this separation seems to be no longer able to capture the individualization of terrorism and thereby the linked hybridization of a terroristic warfare adequately. But in combining findings from both approaches, the new concept of terrok is able to do so.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £10 per year and the subscription period runs from January to December.