The past ten years have witnessed substantive steps toward political liberalization in the oil-exporting countries of the Arab Gulf (Teitelbaum, 2009). In both Bahrain and Qatar, the arrival of new and more youthful leadership has resulted in constitutional reforms and the reinstatement of limited electoral politics. These political reforms unquestionably opened important new arenas for political contestation. At the same time, however, both governments have pursued policies of naturalization and citizenship manipulation that significantly impact the rules for political participation. By strategically expanding (in the case of Bahrain) and narrowing (in the case of Qatar) citizenship rules, the sectarian and tribal composition of citizens has been altered to a degree that has the potential to alter electoral returns in these small city states. In Bahrain the strategic naturalization of Sunni tribesmen, primarily from Saudi Arabia and Syria, has been used to increase the size of the Sunni population relative to the Shia majority. Moreover, these new citizens have been integrated into political districts strategically to affect the electoral balance in key contests. In Qatar, a new citizenship law issued in 2005 created new categories of citizenship based on when citizens arrived in the historic territory of the emirate. These new “tiers” will create different levels of political rights as the emirate moves towards elections for its consultative council. Moreover, tribal membership has become a relevant attribute in setting in electoral districts. This comparative study of political liberalization in Qatar and Bahrain – with reference to earlier experiments in Kuwait - suggests that sectarian and tribal issues enter into electoral politics not only through the gerrymandering of electoral districts, but also through manipulation of citizenship rights. Based on field research conducted in all three countries, this paper bases its analysis on interviews with political society leaders and government officials; data from Bahrain parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2010, and Qatar municipal elections in 2005; and primary source documents including citizenship laws in all three countries. Its conclusions suggest that studies of citizenship rules and their political usage will broaden our understanding of techniques of electoral authoritarianism (Schedler, 2006; Levitsky and Way, 2010). It further cautions policymakers in the realm of democracy promotion to focus not only on electoral procedures but also on the broader issues of political participation in assessing the success of efforts at democratization.