diff -r 322060740b64 Lib/locale.py
--- a/Lib/locale.py	Fri Nov 27 01:21:51 2015 -0600
+++ b/Lib/locale.py	Fri Nov 27 23:09:55 2015 +0100
@@ -18,6 +18,10 @@ import re
 import operator
 import functools
 
+# keep a copy of the builtin str type, because 'str' name is overriden
+# in globals by a function
+_str = str
+
 try:
     _unicode = unicode
 except NameError:
@@ -573,7 +577,7 @@ def setlocale(category, locale=None):
         category may be given as one of the LC_* values.
 
     """
-    if locale and type(locale) is not type(""):
+    if locale and not isinstance(locale, (_str, _unicode)):
         # convert to string
         locale = normalize(_build_localename(locale))
     return _setlocale(category, locale)
diff -r 322060740b64 Lib/test/test_locale.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_locale.py	Fri Nov 27 01:21:51 2015 -0600
+++ b/Lib/test/test_locale.py	Fri Nov 27 23:09:55 2015 +0100
@@ -493,6 +493,16 @@ class TestMiscellaneous(unittest.TestCas
         # longer accept unicode strings.
         self.assertEqual(locale.normalize(u'en_US'), 'en_US.ISO8859-1')
 
+    def test_setlocale_unicode(self):
+        old_loc = locale.getlocale(locale.LC_ALL)
+        try:
+            user_locale = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, '')
+            unicode_locale = user_locale.decode('utf-8')
+            user_locale2 = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, unicode_locale)
+            self.assertEqual(user_locale, user_locale2)
+        finally:
+            locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, old_loc)
+
 
 def test_main():
     tests = [