In an article published in the British academic journal "Democratization" in 1998, he focused in particular on how the US embargo against Cuba helps create "empathy" by third parties towards Cuba, so that Cubans think it is support for Cuba's government. So he argued that the US Government – in addition to the embargo's direct influence on supporting Cuba's regime – indirectly interferes with the possibility of improving Cuba. That is because third countries, foreign non-governmental organizations and prominent individuals lend support to Cuba's resistance to the US embargo, and this offsets external pressures for democracy, thereby allowing the Cuban regime to convert such "empathy" into a source of legitimacy at home.