[en] The Electoral Supreme Tribunal of the Republic of Costa Rica is a particular institution because it has the rank and independence of the Government Branches, but also because it concentrates administrative and jurisdictional functions and it practices the second one as a special constitutional tribunal. This diversity of functions, inside which is also the competence of interpretation of the electoral law, involves an institutional prominence that exceeds the administrative-electoral and jurisdictional-constitutional levels and stands out his mark as a political actor. Given this scenario, the research proposes a first academic approach to the electoral judge from judicial politics, with the premise to verify what factors explain the political role of the electoral judge and assuming as a research hypothesis that this role is favored under certain conditions: electoral conflict of closed results, higher parliamentary fragmentation, extent of the jurisdictional electoral competences and presence of subjective elements of the electoral judge. Besides that explicative model, the thesis proposes a theoretical model for the political role of the electoral judge through a conceptual delimitation with three dimensions: quasi-legislator function, accountability and responsiveness communication, suggesting a typology of political action scenarios and electoral judges, as well as a taxonomy for the behavior of those judges. The investigation carries out a diachronic comparative study of the Costa Rican electoral judge during the last 20 years (1990 to 2010).

[es] El Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones de la Rep?blica de Costa Rica constituye un ?rgano sui g?neris ya que goza del rango e independencia de los Poderes del Estado pero adem?s concentra bajo s? labores tanto de administrador como de juez electoral, ejerciendo esta ?ltima funci?n cual si fuese un tribunal constitucional especializado. Esta diversidad de atribuciones, dentro de las cuales se suma y destaca la competencia interpretativa de la ley electoral, conlleva un protagonismo institucional que supera los planos administrativo-electoral y jur?dico-constitucional, para resaltar su impronta como actor pol?tico. Ante tal escenario, la investigaci?n propone un primer estudio sobre el juez electoral desde judicial politics, con la premisa de verificar qu? factores explican el rol pol?tico del juez electoral y asumi?ndose como hip?tesis de investigaci?n que ese rol se favorece bajo determinadas condiciones: conflictividad electoral de resultados estrechos, mayor fragmentaci?n parlamentaria, amplitud de competencias jurisdiccionales electorales y presencia de elementos subjetivos del propio juez electoral. Adem?s de ese modelo explicativo, la tesis propone un modelo te?rico para el rol pol?tico del juez electoral mediante una delimitaci?n conceptual con tres dimensiones: cuasilegislador, accountability y comunicador, sugiri?ndose adem?s una tipolog?a de escenarios de acci?n pol?tica y jueces electorales, as? como una taxonom?a para el comportamiento de esos jueces. La investigaci?n realiza un estudio comparado diacr?nico del juez electoral costarricense durante los ?ltimos 20 a?os (1990 a 2010).