I need to read David Aldrich and others on siting, but the magnitude of the bribe is surely a function of the political structure in which bribes were offered, and the sheer intransigence that "ojii-san" can exhibit when it pays so well. Of course it helps when there are organized opposition groups who need to be convinced to go along, the bad cop / good cop story. Different political systems will constrain the ability to hold out in different ways.

An example, based on logic rather than a specific case
study: when the rules for opening large store laws in Japan were changed in the mid-1990s to put in hard-and-fast approval deadlines, the game changed and stores got built. Before the local level could procrastinate and procrastinate in hopes of negotiating a better deal, with multiple players there would always be those who'd say "let's wait another month and see if they sweeten the pot" and it would be hard for proponents to dispute what had surely worked several times already. (Of course those wanting to procrastinate would include those who never wanted the store to be granted permission.) With a hard deadline, at some point those who aren't fundamentally opposed have to say aye / nay. There are insider accounts of labor negotiations in the US that convey this logic well, a settlement would never be reached until the last hour even when the final agreement was in line with informal discussions months earlier that took place outside of the negotiation room. There's even one example with the added twist that both sides would very quietly agree to a short strike so that they could cover their backsides (United Auto Workers leaders and GM labor negotiators could then both "sell" the deal to their respective clienteles as "the best they could get" when membership and management had expectations that were not in line with the people at the bargaining table).

mike smitka