Deploying a cross-regional comparative method, this paper juxtaposes two Muslim majority countries infrequently studied by political scientists. The Middle Eastern case is the Republic of Yemen: the country resulting from the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990. The other case -- from South Asia -- is the Republic of the Maldives, an archipelago nation off the southwest coast of India, in the Indian Ocean. The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the feasibility of a comparison of these two cases of partial democratization in order to contribute a novel perspective to debates within the Islam and democracy literature. While neither country can be classified fully democratic, each has recently begun a halting transition as evidenced by top-down liberalization, the development of parties, increasing social pluralism and political participation, and the incidence of campaigns and competitive elections. Following the termination of colonial ties with Britain, each state adopted a unitary republican form, and a presidential system with a weak parliament. The incumbent ruler of North Yemen retained the presidency at the time of the Yemens’ unification, and won elections in 1997 and 2006. In the Maldives, opposition parties were not permitted by the governing party, the Dhivehi Raiyyathunge Party (DRP) until 2004. In November 2008, the DRP lost the presidency and a majority in the Majlis to the Maldives Democratic Party in the country’s first competitive election. This inquiry aims to generate hypotheses concerning the causal relationship between a constitutional ideology of Islamic republicanism, and electoral, quasi-democratic practices. To what extent do constitutional republican principles (e.g. the rule of law, separation of powers, judicial independence) conjoined with an allegiance to Islamic values shape state and opposition parties’ behavior; do transfers of power (Maldives, 2008) or increasing electoral competition (Yemen, especially 2007) increase or decrease the political salience of the state’s religious identity? Data sources regarding the Maldives include personal observation and interviews conducted by the author over ten months in Male’ (the nation’s capitol island) from 2007-2008, the English language press (e.g., The Dhivehi Observer, Minivan News) and multi-disciplinary scholarship (Didier and Simpson 2005, Maloney 1980, Phadnis and Luithui, 1985, Suryanarahyan 1998). The documentary sources regarding Yemen will be the Arabic- and English-language press (e.g. al-Thawri, al-Shura, Yemen Times) as well as specialist political science (Rizwan Ahmed 2001, Burrowes 1999, Carapico 1998, Detalle 1997, Hudson 1999, al-Mdaires 2000, Schwedler 2003, ‘Abdu Sharif 2007) and anthropological (Caton 2005, Messick 1996, 1999) literatures.