diff --git a/pelican/__init__.py b/pelican/__init__.py
index 53216421..a9aa916c 100644
--- a/pelican/__init__.py
+++ b/pelican/__init__.py
@@ -390,7 +390,7 @@ def main():
         # so convert the message to unicode with the correct encoding
         msg = str(e)
         if not six.PY3:
-            msg = msg.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding(False))
+            msg = msg.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding())
 
         logger.critical(msg)
 
diff --git a/pelican/settings.py b/pelican/settings.py
index 87f9c86f..0f37c98d 100644
--- a/pelican/settings.py
+++ b/pelican/settings.py
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ DEFAULT_CONFIG = {
     'MD_EXTENSIONS': ['codehilite(css_class=highlight)', 'extra'],
     'JINJA_EXTENSIONS': [],
     'JINJA_FILTERS': {},
-    'LOCALE': [],  # defaults to user locale
+    'LOCALE': [''],  # defaults to user locale
     'DEFAULT_PAGINATION': False,
     'DEFAULT_ORPHANS': 0,
     'DEFAULT_METADATA': (),
diff --git a/pelican/tests/default_conf.py b/pelican/tests/default_conf.py
index 80a990b5..62594894 100644
--- a/pelican/tests/default_conf.py
+++ b/pelican/tests/default_conf.py
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ GITHUB_URL = 'http://github.com/ametaireau/'
 DISQUS_SITENAME = "blog-notmyidea"
 PDF_GENERATOR = False
 REVERSE_CATEGORY_ORDER = True
-LOCALE = ""
 DEFAULT_PAGINATION = 2
 
 FEED_RSS = 'feeds/all.rss.xml'
diff --git a/pelican/tests/test_settings.py b/pelican/tests/test_settings.py
index b1e813e1..7907a551 100644
--- a/pelican/tests/test_settings.py
+++ b/pelican/tests/test_settings.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 from __future__ import unicode_literals, print_function
 import copy
 import os
+import locale
 from os.path import dirname, abspath, join
 
 from pelican.settings import (read_settings, configure_settings,
@@ -92,3 +93,14 @@ class TestSettingsConfiguration(unittest.TestCase):
         settings['FEED_DOMAIN'] = 'http://feeds.example.com'
         configure_settings(settings)
         self.assertEqual(settings['FEED_DOMAIN'], 'http://feeds.example.com')
+
+    def test_default_encoding(self):
+        # test that the default locale is set if
+        # locale is not specified in the settings
+
+        #reset locale to python default
+        locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, str('C'))
+        self.assertEqual(self.settings['LOCALE'], DEFAULT_CONFIG['LOCALE'])
+
+        configure_settings(self.settings)
+        self.assertEqual(locale.getlocale(), locale.getdefaultlocale())