Catalonia was more or less the old Crown of Aragon (including the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona, and later the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily as well as other lands) from 1173 (1150, when Barcelona and Aragon first joined or 1035, when Aragon first became independent could also be argued as starting dates) to 1474, when it entered a dynastic union with Castile to form the Kingdom of Spain.,

However, The Crown of Aragon retained quite a bit of its independence until its own Corts (parliaments) were closed during and after the war of the Spanish Succession 1707-1715.

So yes, there is a tradition for Catalonia to rule itself and even a history as a regional power or even a grand power during the late medieval and early renaissance era.