The essay "Principles of Panarchism" is, as its name suggests, a statement of the principles of the political philosophy known as Panarchism. Panarchism is a political philosophy proposing that government become both voluntary and nonterritorial in nature. People should be allowed to choose their governments as they do their religions, and governments should become nonterritorially defined associations just as religions are.

The person most associated with panarchism is John Zube, a German born citizen of Australia. Mr. Zube has been promoting panarchism for over three decades, and some of his early essays are considered classics of panarchist literature. These include: "On Tolerance," "The Gospel of Panarchy," and "Some Notes for a Talk on Panarchism to Anarchists." These essays were recently published in the book Panarchy: Essays In The New Political Philosophy.

Principles of Panarchism is an essay composed by Adam Knott using passages from Mr. Zube's voluminous files. As described in the introduction, Knott extracted important passages from Mr. Zube's writings, sorted the passages by topic, and then arranged the passages to read as an essay. Knott supplemented these passages with additional phrases of his own, and also wrote new passages to complete or elaborate on particular ideas. The result is an essay composed of Zube's writings, but edited and partially written by Knott.