This article provides an understanding of how a school system characterised by exceptionally far-reaching market elements has emerged and persisted in Sweden in the period from 1990 to 2025, during which reforms promoting school choice and maximum competition between schools were introduced and consolidated.The analysis demonstrates how periods of politicisation – when dominant discourses and institutional structures are contested – alternate with periods of sedimentation,during which discourses, routines, and structures become objectified and taken for granted. The article concludes by discussing whether the growing criticism of the system in recent years, emerging from multiple quarters, might lead to more substantial changes towards a process of de-marketisation of schooling.