Dodik has been the president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) since its formation in 1996 and has held several political offices within Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[7][8][9] Dodik has also controversially claimed that the Srebrenica massacre is a "fabricated myth",[10] and he has repeatedly denied the Bosnian genocide while praising convicted war criminals such as Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić.

[15] During that time, he formed the Independent Members of Parliament Caucus (Клуб независних посланика у Народној Скупштини Републике Српске, Klub nezavisnih poslanika u Narodnoj Skupštini Republike Srpske), which was the only political opposition to the Serb Democratic Party (Српска демократска странка, Srpska demokratska stranka) and its allies, which held the absolute majority in the war-time parliament of the Republika Srpska.

The caucus he chaired was to form the core of the Party of Independent Social Democrats (Stranka nezavisnih socijaldemokrata, or SNSD) in 1996, after the peace was signed as a result of the Dayton Agreement.

[19] As promised, after Dodik won the election, Republika Srpska received financial aid from the European Union, that money was used to pay salaries for civil servants and the police.

British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said in front of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska that Dodik's government "did more in its first two weeks to improve the lives of the people than its predecessor did in two years.

[21] Croatian president Stjepan Mesić criticised Dodik for encouraging dissatisfied Serbs in Croatia to live in Republika Srpska while neglecting to invite Bosniak and Croat refugees to return.

[25] On 27 October 2009, Dodik provided an RS government jet to pick up Biljana Plavšić, former President of Republika Srpska convicted of war crimes, and welcomed her to Belgrade after her early release from a Swedish prison.

[26] In November 2009, Dodik refused to hand over requested documents detailing the financing of a government building complex in Banja Luka worth 110 million euro and the construction of a highway to international prosecutors at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[28] He stated that the court had no jurisdiction over Republika Srpska and filed a lawsuit against Deputy High Representative Raffi Gregorian Archived 31 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine and international prosecutors.

In making the announcement, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said that "Milorad Dodik's destabilizing corrupt activities and attempts to dismantle the Dayton Peace Accords, motivated by his own self-interest, threaten the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entire region".

[42] As the COVID-19 pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina started in March 2020, the Presidency announced Armed Forces' placement of quarantine tents at the country's borders intended for Bosnian citizens returning home.

[47] Three days later, on 5 March, Slovenian president Borut Pahor also came to Sarajevo and met with Dodik, Džaferović and Komšić, and stated that Slovenia will also donate 4,800 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for the pandemic.

[54] The topic of the meeting was the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with focus being on the Office of the High Representative, regarding if it's time for its closure after being created in 1995 following the Bosnian War.

[57] In the last ten days of his term as High Representative, on 23 July 2021, Valentin Inzko unexpectedly imposed changes to the law banning the denial of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[61] On 26 January 2022, following a meeting on constitutional reform in Sarajevo, Dodik said that he and his party would be "willing to participate in the work of the national institutions if a law, banning calling the country's entities genocidal, was passed in Parliament.

[91] This was part of von der Leyen's visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, since she some hours before opened the Svilaj border checkpoint and a bridge over the nearby Sava river, which bears the internationally important freeway Pan-European Corridor Vc.

[92] In an interview for the largest German news website Der Spiegel, given in October 2021, Dodik, among other things, said that "the Western Balkans have never been further from European Union membership than they are today", thus continuing expressing his Eurosceptic views.

[102] His meeting with Erdoğan was focused on the political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina, following Valentin Inzko's imposed changes to the law banning genocide denial in the country.

[107] On 25 October 2011, Dodik spoke on "An American Foreign Policy Success Story: The Dayton Accords, Republika Srpska and Bosnia's European Integration" at Columbia University.

[114] On 3 November 2012, Dodik announced that the government of Republika Srpska would donate an undisclosed amount to help pay for the renovation of Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej's old residence in Belgrade.

[115] On 13 November 2012, High Representative Valentin Inzko, cited Dodik as "the most frequent, although certainly not the sole, proponent of [Bosnian] state dissolution" in a report to the UN Security Council.

[118] On 26 November 2012, High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, confirmed that there was no investigation against President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and his family in Germany or Austria.

[119] On 1 January 2017, the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Dodik pursuant to Executive Order 13304 and due to his role in defying the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[120] "By obstructing the Dayton Accords, Milorad Dodik poses a significant threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina," said John E. Smith, Acting OFAC Director.

[121] Following the release of the preliminary results in the Republika Srpska election, opposition parties filed accusations of electoral fraud directly against Dodik, who they claimed had coordinated stuffing ballot boxes with thousands of illegal votes to put the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats ahead in the polls and that Jelena Trivić of the Party of Democratic Progress was the true winner of the Republika Srpska presidential election.

"[132] On 27 June 2023, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska voted to suspend rulings by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to stop publishing the High Representative's decrees and laws in the official gazette.

[149][150] The Office of the High Representative responded and stated that: "The Republika Srpska government should reconsider its conclusions and align itself with the facts and legal requirements and act accordingly, rather than inflicting emotional distress on the survivors, torture history and denigrate the public image of the country".

[153] He used variety of claims, espoused by other deniers and conspiracy theorists,[156] such as that Srebrenica was, in fact, revenge for the 1993 Kravica attack and other Bosnian Muslim crimes against Serbs, confirmed or alleged.

[159][160] The Humanitarian Law Center, in their report signed by 31 high-profile signatories, described this new development as "the culmination of more than a decade of genocide denial and historical revisionism by the SNSD government in Republika Srpska".