DSS was formed as a conservative split from the Democratic Party (DS) and has played a key role in the opposition during the 1990s.

It saw its decline in the 2010s and failed to pass the threshold in the 2014 parliamentary election, leading to Koštunica resigning from the position as party leader.

He was replaced by Sanda Rašković Ivić, and in 2016, DSS managed to enter the National Assembly again, this time in a coalition with Dveri.

Rašković Ivić was ousted after the parliamentary election and was replaced by Miloš Jovanović as president of the party.

Soon, similar differences of opinion over ways in which to fight the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia and the DSS's belief in Serbian nationalism led to a division in DEPOS too.

[1] The DSS was a founding member of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) whose presidential candidate and leader of the DSS, Vojislav Koštunica defeated Slobodan Milošević in the 2000 Yugoslav presidential election held on 24 September 2000 winning 50.24% of the vote.

[1] In the December 2000 Serbian parliamentary election, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia won 64.7% of the popular vote, securing 176 seats in the National Assembly.

The leader of the DSS since its foundation, Vojislav Koštunica, was the Prime Minister of Serbia between March 2004 and July 2008 heading up two coalition governments.

In the early 2008 parliamentary election held in May 2008 following the self-proclaimed declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo, the DSS won 30 seats in the National Assembly in coalition with New Serbia.

Because of this approach, the DSS is against Serbia joining the EU if in return it is bound to acknowledge the legitimacy of the self-proclaimed independent Kosovo.

In 2014, founder and first president of DSS Vojislav Koštunica left the party over its abandonment of the idea of political neutrality.

Subsequently, Slobodan Samardžić, Dragan Jočić, Vladeta Janković and Dejan Mihajlov also announced their departure in response to differences of opinion over the course of DSS.